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 Vietnam and from Spokane.
But I was there.
I was there in 1978.
I was there at the first Visage show in 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 1969 to 1979.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Jakarta and Calgary.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Beijing 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 1968 at the first Can practice in a loft in Cologne.
I was working on the marimba sounds with much patience.
I was there when Captain Beefheart 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 Susan Cadogan to the grunge 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 James White and The Blacks. All the underground hits.
All Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Boredoms record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal grunge hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '70s cut and another box set from the '70s.
I hear you're buying a spring reverb and a güiro and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Richard Hell and the Voidoids record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your arpeggiator and bought a clarinet.
I hear that you and your band have sold your clarinet and bought an arpeggiator.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Curtis Mayfield,
Max Romeo,
Joensuu 1685,
Depeche Mode,
Darondo,
X-102,
The Electric Prunes,
Gang Green,
The Kinks,
K-Klass,
Bootsy Collins,
The Dave Clark Five,
Sarah Menescal,
The Barracudas,
Bill Wells,
Eli Mardock,
The Five Americans,
Soulsonic Force,
The Searchers,
Kauko Röyhkä ja Narttu,
Kerri Chandler,
Rites of Spring,
Avey Tare & Kría Brekkan,
Model 500,
Ken Boothe,
Selector Dub Narcotic,
Heavy D & The Boyz,
Crooked Eye,
The Stooges,
The Cosmic Jokers,
Boogie Down Productions,
Severed Heads,
cv313,
Wasted Youth,
The Grass Roots,
Flipper,
Gong,
Pussy Galore,
Stockholm Monsters,
Motorama,
Alice Coltrane,
Colin Newman,
Unrelated Segments,
Crispy Ambulance,
Terror Squad Feat. Camron,
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark,
Wire,
Liliput,
Excepter,
Piero Umiliani,
Roy Ayers Ubiquity,
The Smiths,
Bluetip,
Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft,
Sun Ra,
Marc Romboy vs. Booka Shade,
Major Organ And The Adding Machine,
The Monks,
Infiniti,
The Move,
Goldenarms,
Lalann,
Warren Ellis,
Niagra,
Aswad, Aswad, Aswad, Aswad.
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.