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 Kosovo and from Shanghai.
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 1960 to 1979.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Calgary and Manchester.
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 Michael McDonald 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 Ornette Coleman to the disco 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 Fifty Foot Hose. All the underground hits.
All James White and The Blacks tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Deadbeat 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 '70s cut and another box set from the '80s.
I hear you're buying an arpeggiator and a linndrum and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a The Searchers record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your clarinet and bought an arpeggiator.
I hear that you and your band have sold your arpeggiator and bought a clarinet.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
The Searchers,
Echo & the Bunnymen,
Easy Going,
Sun City Girls,
Wings,
Sound Behaviour,
Sun Ra Arkestra,
the Sonics,
Rod Modell,
The Tremeloes,
David Bowie,
Brand Nubian,
Grandmaster Flash,
the Swans,
Adolescents,
Sixth Finger,
Siouxsie and the Banshees,
Wire,
Oppenheimer Analysis,
Fela Kuti,
Archie Shepp,
Roger Hodgson,
The Grass Roots,
The Young Rascals,
Yaz,
Larry & the Blue Notes,
Roy Ayers Ubiquity,
Hoover,
Essential Logic,
Eric Dolphy,
Gang Starr,
Harpers Bizarre,
John Holt,
Amazonics,
Sugar Minott,
Unrelated Segments,
The Kinks,
Big Daddy Kane,
Coldchain, Rosco P., Featuring Pusha T from Clipse & Boo-Bonic,
Brothers Johnson,
Black Pus,
Oneida,
Aural Exciters,
Barry Ungar,
Moby Grape,
Jeru the Damaja,
Pole,
Main Source,
The Walker Brothers,
Quando Quango,
Robert Görl,
Connie Case,
Simply Red,
Heaven 17,
Boz Scaggs,
John Coltrane,
Colin Newman,
The Last Poets,
Silicon Teens,
Newcleus,
Todd Terry,
Trumans Water,
Matthew Halsall, Matthew Halsall, Matthew Halsall, Matthew Halsall.
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.