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 Cambodia and from Tehran.
But I was there.
I was there in 1977.
I was there at the first Human League show in Sheffield.
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 1969 to 1977.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Houston and Delhi.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Copenhagen 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 Feelies practice in a loft in Haledon.
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 A Certain Ratio to the grime kids.
I played it at the Astoria.
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 Hardrive. All the underground hits.
All Warsaw tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Hardrive record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal crunk hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '50s cut and another box set from the '80s.
I hear you're buying a spring reverb and a mellotron and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Jawbox record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your synthesizer and bought a sitar.
I hear that you and your band have sold your sitar and bought a synthesizer.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Dorothy Ashby,
Deadbeat,
Section 25,
Pagans,
Lonnie Liston Smith,
Richard Hell and the Voidoids,
Vainqueur,
Lightning Bolt,
Ponytail,
The Fire Engines,
Boz Scaggs,
Joey Negro,
The Toasters,
Bootsy Collins,
Drexciya,
Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson,
Sister Nancy,
Average White Band,
Animal Collective,
Scott Walker,
Leonard Cohen,
Absolute Body Control,
James Chance & The Contortions,
The Beau Brummels,
Traffic Nightmare,
Donny Hathaway,
John Coltrane,
Jacques Brel,
Liliput,
Kool G Rap & DJ Polo,
Symarip,
Yusef Lateef,
The Leaves,
The Invisible,
The Cowsills,
The Gap Band,
Metal Thangz,
Qualms,
X-102,
Prince Buster,
AZ,
Johnny Osbourne,
T. Rex,
Anthony Braxton,
Eric Copeland,
Los Fastidios,
Echo & the Bunnymen,
The Kinks,
John Foxx,
The Sisters of Mercy,
Arcadia,
Lalo Schifrin,
Rod Modell,
the Slits,
The Monochrome Set,
Urselle,
Agent Orange,
MDC,
Graham Central Station,
Masters at Work,
The Jesus and Mary Chain,
The Cure, The Cure, The Cure, The Cure.
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.