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 Congo and from Toronto.
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 1967 to 1974.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Winnipeg and Winnipeg.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Johannesburg 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 arpeggiator sounds with much patience.
I was there when Robert Palmer 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 Lyres to the funk kids.
I played it at the Troubador.
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 Kas Product. All the underground hits.
All The New Christs tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Charles Mingus record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal dance 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 theremin and a rhodes and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Avey Tare record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your güiro and bought a theremin.
I hear that you and your band have sold your theremin and bought a güiro.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Jeru the Damaja,
Soul II Soul,
The Mummies,
The Move,
Matthew Halsall,
Television Personalities,
The Last Poets,
La Düsseldorf,
Hoover,
One Last Wish,
Terrestrial Tones,
Cecil Taylor,
Nik Kershaw,
Robert Wyatt,
Unrelated Segments,
PIL,
Inner City,
Japan,
Thompson Twins,
Wasted Youth,
Sonny Sharrock,
The Monks,
Metal Thangz,
Excepter,
Boredoms,
T. Rex,
Brass Construction,
Erykah Badu,
Johnny Osbourne,
Aswad,
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds,
Altered Images,
Lizzy Mercier Descloux,
Barclay James Harvest,
The Alarm Clocks,
Howard Jones,
Kings Of Tomorrow,
Depeche Mode,
The New Christs,
Average White Band,
Lindisfarne,
Rowland S Howard / Lydia Lunch,
Laurel Aitken,
Rod Modell,
Bobby Byrd,
Grandmaster Flash,
New York Dolls,
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five,
Eric Copeland,
Yaz,
The Saints,
Richard Hell and the Voidoids,
Larry & the Blue Notes,
Nick Fraelich,
Sam Rivers,
Magazine,
Isaac Hayes,
Fear,
Traffic Nightmare,
Guru Guru,
Desert Stars,
Liaisons Dangereuses,
Al Stewart, Al Stewart, Al Stewart, Al Stewart.
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.