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 Dominica and from Milan.
But I was there.
I was there in 1975.
I was there at the first Ubu show in Cleveland.
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 1962 to 1973.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Johannesburg and Toronto.
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 1970 at the first Onyeabor practice in a loft in Enugu.
I was working on the arpeggiator sounds with much patience.
I was there when Holger Czukay 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 Alphaville to the jazz 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 Golliwogs. All the underground hits.
All Skaos tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every The Skatalites 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 '80s cut and another box set from the '90s.
I hear you're buying an organ and a linndrum and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a The Grass Roots record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your rhodes and bought a snare.
I hear that you and your band have sold your snare and bought a rhodes.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Hasil Adkins,
Wire,
Thompson Twins,
The Alarm Clocks,
the Fania All-Stars,
Depeche Mode,
Excepter,
Dorothy Ashby,
The J.B.'s,
Vaughan Mason & Crew,
Wally Richardson,
Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft,
Roger Hodgson,
Rufus Thomas,
Andrew Hill,
Röyhkä ja Rättö ja Lehtisalo,
Eden Ahbez,
Super Lover Cee & Casanova Rud,
The Beau Brummels,
Guru Guru,
Aural Exciters,
Joensuu 1685,
Maleditus Sound,
Al Stewart,
Fela Kuti,
The Real Kids,
Liaisons Dangereuses,
Yellowson,
DNA,
Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson,
Quadrant,
Richard Hell and the Voidoids,
Zapp,
Brass Construction,
Kurtis Blow,
Deakin,
The Buckinghams,
Man Eating Sloth,
Sonny Sharrock,
Agitation Free,
The Last Poets,
The Offenders,
Boredoms,
Duran Duran,
Monks,
EPMD,
Bizarre Inc.,
The Wake,
Metal Thangz,
48th St. Collective,
Toni Rubio,
Mary Jane Girls,
The Skatalites,
The Detroit Cobras,
Moebius,
Kaleidoscope,
Manfred Mann's Earth Band,
Bush Tetras,
Second Layer,
Ornette Coleman,
Derrick Morgan,
The Victims, The Victims, The Victims, The Victims.
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.