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 Qatar and from Tehran.
But I was there.
I was there in 1971.
I was there at the first Big Star show in Memphis.
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 1975.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Lille and Hong Kong.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Accra 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 1979 at the first Second Layer practice in a loft in South London.
I was working on the harpsichord 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 Peter and Kerry to the rock 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 Delon & Dalcan. All the underground hits.
All Second Layer tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every T. Rex record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal rap hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '80s cut and another box set from the '90s.
I hear you're buying a harpsichord and a theremin and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Robert Wyatt record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your arpeggiator and bought a güiro.
I hear that you and your band have sold your güiro and bought an arpeggiator.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five,
The Barracudas,
Wings,
Unrelated Segments,
Lyres,
Fluxion,
The Busters,
Ornette Coleman,
Leonard Cohen,
Rekid,
Pharoah Sanders,
Don Cherry,
The Standells,
Gang Green,
MC5,
Avey Tare's Slasher Flicks,
The Golliwogs,
Half Japanese,
Tomorrow,
The Angels of Light,
Sandy B,
Sex Pistols,
Depeche Mode,
Dead Boys,
Lightning Bolt,
Reuben Wilson,
Bobby Byrd,
Faraquet,
Wighnomy Brothers & Robag Wruhme,
Michelle Simonal,
Johnny Clarke,
Alison Limerick,
Blake Baxter,
Ice-T,
The Residents,
Cluster,
Scientists,
Vaughan Mason & Crew,
Yusef Lateef,
Boz Scaggs,
Massinfluence,
Arab on Radar,
Vainqueur,
The Doors,
James White and The Blacks,
The Neon Judgement,
The Vogues,
Radiohead,
Hashim,
Harmonia,
Shoche,
Dawn Penn,
Kayak,
Alphaville,
Sticky Fingaz feat. Raekwon,
Wasted Youth,
Inner City,
Bill Wells,
Bad Manners,
Frankie Knuckles,
Surgeon,
Derrick May,
Arcadia, Arcadia, Arcadia, Arcadia.
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.