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 Angola and from Johannesburg.
But I was there.
I was there in 1971.
I was there at the first Selda show in Istanbul.
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 1978.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Lagos and Beijing.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Hong Kong 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 rhodes 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 World's Most 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 The Smoke. All the underground hits.
All Fela Kuti tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every T.S.O.L. record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal grime hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '60s cut and another box set from the '90s.
I hear you're buying a theremin and an oboe and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Warren Ellis record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your synthesizer and bought a guitar.
I hear that you and your band have sold your guitar and bought a synthesizer.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Sad Lovers and Giants,
Mandrill,
Fear,
Rod Modell,
Gang Gang Dance,
Newcleus,
Matthew Halsall,
Fort Wilson Riot,
Louis and Bebe Barron,
The Durutti Column,
Donald Byrd,
Sam Rivers,
Public Enemy,
The Fuzztones,
Strawberry Alarm Clock,
The Divine Comedy,
The Music Machine,
Rakim,
Junior Murvin,
Piero Umiliani,
The Barracudas,
Scott Walker + Sunn O))),
Wings,
The Beau Brummels,
James Chance & The Contortions,
Maleditus Sound,
Yusef Lateef,
Lindisfarne,
Derrick Morgan,
Sonic Youth,
Gregory Isaacs,
James White and The Blacks,
Harry Pussy,
The Evens,
The Cosmic Jokers,
John Coltrane,
Andrew Ashong & Theo Parrish,
Sex Pistols,
Infiniti,
The Shadows of Knight,
Suicide,
The Saints,
Electric Prunes,
The Walker Brothers,
Pharaoh Sanders and the Fire Engines,
Section 25,
Gerry Rafferty,
The Grass Roots,
Fela Kuti,
June Days,
the Bar-Kays,
Bobbi Humphrey,
X-101,
Moby Grape,
Cheater Slicks,
Gang Starr,
Barbara Tucker,
Scientists,
Easy Going,
Black Sheep,
Sixth Finger,
Ponytail,
Zapp, Zapp, Zapp, Zapp.
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.