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 Rwanda and from Bremen.
But I was there.
I was there in 1983.
I was there at the first Art of Noise 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 1968 to 1972.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Mumbai and Accra.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Portland 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 Soft Boys practice in a loft in Cambridge.
I was working on the organ 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 The Last Poets to the punk 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 Eve St. Jones. All the underground hits.
All Buzzcocks tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every The Sonics record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal rap hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '50s cut and another box set from the '90s.
I hear you're buying a mellotron and a guitar and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a The Men They Couldn't Hang record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your marimba and bought an oboe.
I hear that you and your band have sold your oboe and bought a marimba.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
The Velvet Underground,
Arthur Verocai,
Fear,
Eyeless In Gaza,
Eden Ahbez,
Alison Limerick,
Warsaw,
Delon & Dalcan,
Joey Negro,
Y Pants,
La Düsseldorf,
U.S. Maple,
Radiopuhelimet,
Roger Hodgson,
Traffic Nightmare,
Avey Tare,
The Red Krayola,
The Detroit Cobras,
AZ,
Freddie Wadling,
Moby Grape,
Hasil Adkins,
The Kinks,
Tropical Tobacco,
Peter Gordon & Love of Life Orchestra,
Pharaoh Sanders and the Fire Engines,
Rahsaan Roland Kirk,
Connie Case,
Yazoo,
Sällskapet,
Soft Cell,
In Retrospect,
Mars,
Arcadia,
Radiohead,
Hashim,
Grauzone,
Black Bananas,
Harry Pussy,
Derrick May,
Desert Stars,
Marmalade,
Pere Ubu,
Guru Guru,
Whodini,
Dawn Penn,
Public Enemy,
Unrelated Segments,
Bobby Byrd,
Symarip,
Alton Ellis,
The Alarm Clocks,
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark,
Bob Dylan,
Skarface,
Ajijia Myrayebe,
David Axelrod,
Altered Images,
The Smoke,
Lonnie Liston Smith,
The Names,
Terry Callier, Terry Callier, Terry Callier, Terry Callier.
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.