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 Cameroon and from Portland.
But I was there.
I was there in 1979.
I was there at the first Second Layer show in South London.
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 1968 to 1975.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Portland and Houston.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Manila 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 1977 at the first Mistral practice in a loft in Amsterdam.
I was working on the spring reverb 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 A Certain Ratio to the grime kids.
I played it at the Roxy.
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 Lucky Dragons. All the underground hits.
All The Doors tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Peter & Gordon record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal disco hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '60s cut and another box set from the '70s.
I hear you're buying a marimba and a spring reverb and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Pantaleimon record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your mellotron and bought an arpeggiator.
I hear that you and your band have sold your arpeggiator and bought a mellotron.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Black Sheep,
Lonnie Liston Smith,
Alphaville,
Pharoah Sanders,
The Fortunes,
Don Cherry,
Flipper,
Hashim,
Drexciya,
KRS-One,
Thee Headcoats,
Traffic Nightmare,
Angels of Light & Akron/Family,
The Slits,
The Standells,
Blossom Toes,
Bill Wells,
Ronan,
Röyhkä ja Rättö ja Lehtisalo,
Organ,
Soft Machine,
Rosa Yemen,
Section 25,
Fear,
The Alarm Clocks,
Minor Threat,
Masters at Work,
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five,
Bill Near,
Drive Like Jehu,
Glenn Branca,
David Axelrod,
Ronnie Foster,
Fat Boys,
the Sonics,
Red Lorry Yellow Lorry,
Crooked Eye,
The Moleskins,
Quadrant,
Sister Nancy,
Buzzcocks,
Pharaoh Sanders and the Fire Engines,
Oneida,
Black Pus,
Faraquet,
Pere Ubu,
The Move,
The Fugs,
Gary Puckett & The Union Gap,
Gang of Four,
The Electric Prunes,
Marvin Gaye,
Bang On A Can,
Nation of Ulysses,
the Normal,
Beasts of Bourbon,
Index,
Lafayette Afro Rock Band,
Accadde A, Accadde A, Accadde A, Accadde A.
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.