Infinitely Losing My Edge
Yeah, I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge.
The kids are coming up from behind.
I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge to the kids from Burundi and from Halifax.
But I was there.
I was there in 1970.
I was there at the first Onyeabor show in Enugu.
I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge to the kids whose footsteps I hear when they get on the decks.
I'm losing my edge to the internet seekers who can tell me every member of every good group from 1963 to 1979.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Tokyo and Calgary.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Calgary kids in little jackets and borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered nineties.
I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge.
I can hear the footsteps every night on the decks.
But I was there.
I was there in 1976 at the first Soft Boys practice in a loft in Cambridge.
I was working on the arpeggiator sounds with much patience.
I was there when Michael McDonald started up his first band.
I told him, "Don't do it that way. You'll never make a dime."
I was there.
I was the first guy playing The Dirtbombs to the grime kids.
I played it at Cafe Wha.
Everybody thought I was crazy.
We all know.
I was there.
I was there.
I've never been wrong.
But I'm losing my edge to better-looking people with better ideas and more talent.
And they're actually really, really nice.
I'm losing my edge.
I heard you have a compilation of every good song ever done by anybody.
Every great song by Nik Kershaw. All the underground hits.
All Electric Light Orchestra tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Manfred Mann's Earth Band record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal techno hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '70s cut and another box set from the '70s.
I hear you're buying a 808 and an arpeggiator and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Nik Kershaw record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your clarinet and bought a synthesizer.
I hear that you and your band have sold your synthesizer and bought a clarinet.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Cybotron,
Q and Not U,
Nirvana,
Soul II Soul,
The Velvet Underground,
Curtis Mayfield,
Cecil Taylor,
Morten Harket,
DNA,
Maleditus Sound,
Eyeless In Gaza,
Alice Coltrane,
Sun City Girls,
Rowland S Howard / Lydia Lunch,
Nico,
The Five Americans,
Reuben Wilson,
Severed Heads,
Graham Central Station,
Throbbing Gristle,
Television Personalities,
Essential Logic,
Oblivians,
MDC,
La Düsseldorf,
Intrusion,
Flash Fearless,
The Golliwogs,
Glenn Branca,
Public Enemy,
Subhumans,
Bush Tetras,
The Toasters,
Sister Nancy,
Pharaoh Sanders and the Fire Engines,
Sexual Harrassment,
Model 500,
Skriet,
Red Lorry Yellow Lorry,
Black Bananas,
Heaven 17,
the Swans,
Aural Exciters,
Nick Fraelich,
Silicon Teens,
Technova,
Reagan Youth,
Ossler,
Fort Wilson Riot,
The Index,
Cal Tjader,
Pierre Henry,
Black Moon,
Liaisons Dangereuses,
Andrew Ashong & Theo Parrish,
Terror Squad Feat. Camron,
The Moody Blues,
Gang Starr,
The Busters,
Bob Dylan,
The Martian,
Second Layer,
Crime,
Barbara Tucker,
Quadrant, Quadrant, Quadrant, Quadrant.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.