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 Trinidad & Tobago and from Spokane.
But I was there.
I was there in 1976.
I was there at the first Soft Boys show in Cambridge.
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 1965 to 1977.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in New York and Glasgow.
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 1965 at the first Beefheart practice in a loft in Lancaster.
I was working on the arpeggiator sounds with much patience.
I was there when Nile Rodgers 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 The Last Poets to the crunk 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 Alphaville. All the underground hits.
All X-102 tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Jacob Miller record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal funk 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 rhodes and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Gil Scott Heron record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your guitar and bought an organ.
I hear that you and your band have sold your organ and bought a guitar.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Stiv Bators,
Ossler,
Agent Orange,
Bill Near,
Lou Christie,
Aloha Tigers,
Cluster,
X-101,
Mandrill,
Eurythmics,
Derrick Morgan,
Susan Cadogan,
Warsaw,
Popol Vuh,
Gregory Isaacs,
Grauzone,
New Order,
Y Pants,
Das Ding,
Rhythm & Sound,
Tubeway Army,
Marcia Griffiths,
The Angels of Light,
Sarah Menescal,
The New Christs,
The Happenings,
Mo-Dettes,
D'Angelo,
Index,
The Searchers,
Röyhkä ja Rättö ja Lehtisalo,
Gary Puckett & The Union Gap,
Idris Muhammad,
Manfred Mann's Earth Band,
The Gladiators,
Pole,
Television,
Pere Ubu,
The Chocolate Watch Band,
Intrusion,
The American Breed,
The Gories,
Erasure,
In Retrospect,
Von Mondo,
Brand Nubian,
Althea and Donna,
The Pretty Things,
Joe Smooth,
Robert Görl,
The Sonics,
Anthony Braxton,
Excepter,
Drive Like Jehu,
Rufus Thomas,
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks,
Arcadia,
Lizzy Mercier Descloux,
Thinking Fellers Union Local 282,
Beasts of Bourbon,
Connie Case,
Minnie Riperton, Minnie Riperton, Minnie Riperton, Minnie Riperton.
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.