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 Palau and from Columbus.
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 Lille and Copenhagen.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Cairo 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 2001 at the first Tiga practice in a loft in Montreal.
I was working on the güiro sounds with much patience.
I was there when David Bowie 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 Scratch Acid to the techno kids.
I played it at the Crocodile.
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 Cheater Slicks. All the underground hits.
All The Misunderstood tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Desert Stars 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 '60s cut and another box set from the '90s.
I hear you're buying a chamberlin and a güiro and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a MC5 record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your oboe and bought an organ.
I hear that you and your band have sold your organ and bought an oboe.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
The Blackbyrds,
ABBA,
Scratch Acid,
The Men They Couldn't Hang,
Henry Cow,
Inner City,
Shuggie Otis,
Ornette Coleman,
Severed Heads,
Fort Wilson Riot,
Infiniti,
Bauhaus,
Sarah Menescal,
the Soft Cell,
Warren Ellis,
Strawberry Alarm Clock,
Deepchord,
Gang Starr,
The Martian,
The Five Americans,
X-102,
Bobby Womack,
Maleditus Sound,
The Grass Roots,
Ohio Players,
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds,
Rakim,
In Retrospect,
Andrew Ashong & Theo Parrish,
K-Klass,
Rufus Thomas,
Johnny Osbourne,
Altered Images,
Cluster,
H. Thieme,
Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie xx,
Mad Mike,
Soft Cell,
Dual Sessions,
Sly & The Family Stone,
Danielle Patucci,
Roger Hodgson,
Terry Callier,
Terrestrial Tones,
The Toasters,
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five,
Cecil Taylor,
The Detroit Cobras,
Peter & Gordon,
X-Ray Spex,
Gary Puckett & The Union Gap,
Sixth Finger,
Camouflage,
The Gap Band,
Patti Smith,
FM Einheit,
Skarface,
Ten City,
the Fania All-Stars,
The Pop Group,
Saccharine Trust,
These Immortal Souls,
Kurtis Blow, Kurtis Blow, Kurtis Blow, Kurtis Blow.
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.