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 Italy and from Manila.
But I was there.
I was there in 1976.
I was there at the first Feelies show in Haledon.
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 1965 to 1974.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Philadelphia and Beijing.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Winnipeg 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 güiro sounds with much patience.
I was there when Donald Fagen 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 Nation of Ulysses to the grunge kids.
I played it at the Spitz.
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 Byron Stingily. All the underground hits.
All Gang Gang Dance tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Lou Reed record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal disco 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 an arpeggiator and a spring reverb and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Warsaw record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your marimba and bought an oboe.
I hear that you and your band have sold your oboe and bought a marimba.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Yusef Lateef,
Bootsy Collins,
Newcleus,
Mission of Burma,
Jesper Dahlback,
The Slits,
Zapp,
The Saints,
Byron Stingily,
Cheater Slicks,
Gang Starr,
Piero Umiliani,
Scrapy,
Reuben Wilson,
the Fania All-Stars,
Lucky Dragons,
Suicide,
the Swans,
Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson,
The Durutti Column,
Smog,
DJ Style,
Gang Green,
Gary Puckett & The Union Gap,
Malaria!,
EPMD,
David Bowie,
Arab on Radar,
Robert Hood,
Patti Smith,
John Coltrane,
Roy Ayers Ubiquity,
The Count Five,
Scott Walker + Sunn O))),
Andrew Hill,
Ponytail,
Barbara Tucker,
Mo-Dettes,
Adolescents,
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five,
Lou Reed & Metallica,
The Invisible,
Graham Central Station,
Sex Pistols,
Chrome,
Lower 48,
Jimmy McGriff,
Howard Jones,
Rosa Yemen,
Scott Walker,
John Foxx,
Tubeway Army,
Josef K,
Dual Sessions,
Jeff Lynne,
The Monochrome Set,
Suburban Knight,
Organ,
The Divine Comedy,
Erykah Badu,
Bobby Womack,
Shoche,
The Offenders,
Nas, Nas, Nas, Nas.
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.