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 Lagos.
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 1966 to 1976.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Lyon and Glasgow.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Spokane 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 1978 at the first Visage practice in a loft in London.
I was working on the organ sounds with much patience.
I was there when Robert Palmer 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 Big Daddy Kane to the grime kids.
I played it at the Troubador.
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 Sexual Harrassment. All the underground hits.
All The Selecter tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Qualms record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal rock hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '80s cut and another box set from the '90s.
I hear you're buying a rhodes and a snare and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Bill Near record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your synthesizer and bought a chamberlin.
I hear that you and your band have sold your chamberlin and bought a synthesizer.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Lalo Schifrin,
Wire,
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five,
Mad Mike,
Hashim,
Lou Reed,
Magma,
Bang On A Can,
Banda Bassotti,
DNA,
Aloha Tigers,
Art Ensemble Of Chicago,
The Happenings,
Malaria!,
Babytalk,
David Axelrod,
Dawn Penn,
June Days,
Letta Mbulu,
The Kinks,
These Immortal Souls,
Bronski Beat,
Arab on Radar,
Liaisons Dangereuses,
Roy Ayers Ubiquity,
Notorious Big And Bone Thugs,
Black Moon,
Joy Division,
Rakim,
Louis and Bebe Barron,
The American Breed,
Popol Vuh,
Japan,
Tres Demented,
the Normal,
The Fugs,
Gary Puckett & The Union Gap,
Eden Ahbez,
Althea and Donna,
Gabor Szabo,
Ludus,
Delta 5,
Brass Construction,
Pagans,
LL Cool J,
Oppenheimer Analysis,
Jacques Brel,
Surgeon,
The Fall,
Faust,
OOIOO,
Marine Girls,
Black Sheep,
The Black Dice,
Los Fastidios,
Lungfish,
Quadrant,
Godley & Creme,
James Chance & The Contortions,
X-Ray Spex,
Minutemen,
Roxy Music,
Stetsasonic,
Country Teasers, Country Teasers, Country Teasers, Country Teasers.
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.