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 Iceland and from Accra.
But I was there.
I was there in 1976.
I was there at the first Chic show in New York.
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 1974.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Toronto and Accra.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Seoul 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 synthesizer sounds with much patience.
I was there when Lou Reed 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 Rufus Thomas to the crunk 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 the Human League. All the underground hits.
All The Birthday Party tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Scientists 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 '70s cut and another box set from the '90s.
I hear you're buying a chamberlin and a 808 and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Larry & the Blue Notes record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your marimba and bought a sitar.
I hear that you and your band have sold your sitar and bought a marimba.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Dawn Penn,
Avey Tare,
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark,
Altered Images,
Jeff Lynne,
Dual Sessions,
Prince Buster,
Nik Kershaw,
Roxette,
Erasure,
Skaos,
The Buckinghams,
The Techniques,
The Blackbyrds,
One Last Wish,
Tim Buckley,
Sun City Girls,
Kango’s Stein Massive,
A Certain Ratio,
Cabaret Voltaire,
Wighnomy Brothers & Robag Wruhme,
48th St. Collective,
Fluxion,
The Durutti Column,
Warsaw,
The Music Machine,
Pere Ubu,
Pharaoh Sanders and the Fire Engines,
Radiohead,
Dr. Dre and Snoop Doggy Dog,
New Age Steppers,
Glenn Branca,
Wings,
Cal Tjader,
Brothers Johnson,
Delta 5,
Black Bananas,
Eve St. Jones,
Johnny Clarke,
Supertramp,
Alice Coltrane,
Skriet,
Arcadia,
Infiniti,
Erykah Badu,
Harmonia,
The Last Poets,
Easy Going,
Nas,
Mantronix,
The Angels of Light,
Matthew Halsall,
Duran Duran,
The Remains,
Isaac Hayes,
Crispy Ambulance,
Oppenheimer Analysis,
Suicide,
Toni Rubio,
Harpers Bizarre,
PIL,
Shuggie Otis,
Smog,
Cecil Taylor, Cecil Taylor, Cecil Taylor, Cecil Taylor.
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.