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 Kazakhstan and from Seoul.
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 1979.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Cairo and Lille.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Lagos 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 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 Con Funk Shun to the electroclash kids.
I played it at CBGB's.
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 James White and The Blacks. All the underground hits.
All Tubeway Army tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every The Knickerbockers record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal techno hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '50s cut and another box set from the '90s.
I hear you're buying a spring reverb and a linndrum and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Alphaville record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your chamberlin and bought an arpeggiator.
I hear that you and your band have sold your arpeggiator and bought a chamberlin.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Brass Construction,
Intrusion,
Idris Muhammad,
Surgeon,
F. McDonald,
Stetsasonic,
Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth,
Aaron Thompson,
The Last Poets,
The Martian,
Freddie Wadling,
Avey Tare,
Eli Mardock,
The Invisible,
Ohio Players,
Magazine,
David Axelrod,
Sonic Youth,
Scratch Acid,
Animal Collective,
Hardrive,
Girls At Our Best!,
Babytalk,
Sticky Fingaz feat. Raekwon,
Scrapy,
Audionom,
Agent Orange,
Minny Pops,
China Crisis,
D'Angelo,
Johnny Osbourne,
Livin' Joy,
Excepter,
PIL,
The Index,
Hoover,
The Modern Lovers,
Faraquet,
Mark Hollis,
H. Thieme,
Dark Day,
Shuggie Otis,
Dennis Brown,
Shoche,
Black Sheep,
Porter Ricks,
Warsaw,
Blake Baxter,
Qualms,
Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft,
Fela Kuti,
Television,
Tres Demented,
Kerri Chandler,
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five,
Steve Hackett,
Crispy Ambulance,
the Human League,
Sandy B,
Lonnie Liston Smith,
Sparks,
Reuben Wilson,
Infiniti,
Oblivians, Oblivians, Oblivians, Oblivians.
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.