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 Suriname and from New York.
But I was there.
I was there in 1971.
I was there at the first Selda show in Istanbul.
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 1963 to 1974.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Johannesburg and Accra.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Shanghai 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 1979 at the first Josef K practice in a loft in Edinburgh.
I was working on the guitar sounds with much patience.
I was there when Donald Fagen 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 Pere Ubu to the jazz 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 Robert Hood. All the underground hits.
All the Association tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Lou Reed record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal crunk 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 clarinet and a theremin and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a The Smoke record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your clarinet and bought a rhodes.
I hear that you and your band have sold your rhodes and bought a clarinet.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
The Toasters,
Quantec,
Agitation Free,
Marcia Griffiths,
Roy Ayers Ubiquity,
The J.B.'s,
Sun City Girls,
Amon Düül II,
Kayak,
The Alarm Clocks,
ABC,
Prince Buster,
Barry Ungar,
Funkadelic,
Cabaret Voltaire,
Excepter,
The Dave Clark Five,
Heaven 17,
Radiohead,
The Pop Group,
Essential Logic,
Selector Dub Narcotic,
The Slits,
Amazonics,
Grandmaster Flash,
Warsaw,
Loose Ends,
Whodini,
The Fall,
Delon & Dalcan,
Yellowson,
Carl Craig,
David McCallum,
Panda Bear,
a-ha,
Joe Smooth,
The Flesh Eaters,
Lindisfarne,
Kaleidoscope,
Flipper,
Pierre Henry,
Sonny Sharrock,
Big Daddy Kane,
Severed Heads,
Aswad,
Rufus Thomas,
Connie Case,
Henry Cow,
The Cure,
the Normal,
Minor Threat,
Television Personalities,
Japan,
The Young Rascals,
Arcadia,
Quando Quango,
Magma,
Lou Reed & Metallica,
48th St. Collective,
Peter & Gordon, Peter & Gordon, Peter & Gordon, Peter & Gordon.
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.