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 Guinea-Bissau and from Mexico City.
But I was there.
I was there in 1976.
I was there at the first Soft Boys show in Cambridge.
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 1962 to 1977.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Accra and Accra.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Sao Paulo 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 1987 at the first Nirvana practice in a loft in Seattle.
I was working on the 808 sounds with much patience.
I was there when Tom Verlaine 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 Music Machine to the grunge kids.
I played it at Trash.
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 PIL. All the underground hits.
All Tropical Tobacco tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Peter and Kerry record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal jazz hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '80s cut and another box set from the '70s.
I hear you're buying a snare and a theremin and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a The Men They Couldn't Hang record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your rhodes and bought a guitar.
I hear that you and your band have sold your guitar and bought a rhodes.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Shoche,
Radiohead,
ABC,
The Golliwogs,
Rowland S Howard / Lydia Lunch,
Sällskapet,
Idris Muhammad,
The Mummies,
Jacques Brel,
Talk Talk,
Cecil Taylor,
Kenny Larkin,
China Crisis,
Sad Lovers and Giants,
Jawbox,
Drexciya,
Schoolly D,
Porter Ricks,
Anthony Braxton,
Camberwell Now,
Marine Girls,
Kango’s Stein Massive,
La Düsseldorf,
Patti Smith,
Minor Threat,
Jandek,
Stiv Bators,
Cal Tjader,
DJ Sneak,
The Standells,
Johnny Osbourne,
The Doors,
Röyhkä ja Rättö ja Lehtisalo,
Vaughan Mason & Crew,
Bizarre Inc.,
Marcia Griffiths,
Severed Heads,
Drive Like Jehu,
the Slits,
Richard Hell and the Voidoids,
Harmonia,
Kaleidoscope,
The Human League,
Quadrant,
Ice-T,
Eric Copeland,
Chrome,
Metal Thangz,
Rosa Yemen,
Animal Collective,
Minny Pops,
Rapeman,
T.S.O.L.,
Ituana,
The Kinks,
The Dirtbombs,
Connie Case,
The Fall,
Slick Rick,
Echospace,
Leonard Cohen,
Bob Dylan,
Mantronix,
Lucky Dragons,
Wolf Eyes, Wolf Eyes, Wolf Eyes, Wolf Eyes.
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.