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 Samoa and from Toronto.
But I was there.
I was there in 1973.
I was there at the first Television 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 1962 to 1970.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Jakarta and Seoul.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Toronto 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 1968 at the first Can practice in a loft in Cologne.
I was working on the spring reverb sounds with much patience.
I was there when Tom Verlaine 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 Lizzy Mercier Descloux 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 Slits. All the underground hits.
All ABC tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Fluxion record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal electroclash 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 güiro and an arpeggiator and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Quando Quango record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your snare and bought a guitar.
I hear that you and your band have sold your guitar and bought a snare.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Mission of Burma,
Excepter,
Main Source,
Q and Not U,
Underground Resistance,
June Days,
The Slits,
James White and The Blacks,
Dual Sessions,
Shoche,
The Electric Prunes,
Freddie Wadling,
Fatback Band,
Crime,
Rod Modell,
N.O.R.E. Featuring Pharrell,
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark,
Dead Boys,
Lyres,
Oneida,
Robert Wyatt,
The Blues Magoos,
The Fugs,
Ultra Naté,
Yazoo,
Albert Ayler,
Slave,
Ossler,
Cheater Slicks,
Dark Day,
Desert Stars,
Jesper Dahlbäck,
The Beau Brummels,
Stereo Dub,
Eve St. Jones,
The Residents,
Josef K,
Vainqueur,
Susan Cadogan,
Country Joe & The Fish,
The Cure,
Lou Reed & John Cale,
Chrome,
Thee Headcoats,
Todd Rundgren,
Moebius,
Marvin Gaye,
This Heat,
Graham Central Station,
Black Sheep,
Brand Nubian,
Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie xx,
John Holt,
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five,
48th St. Collective,
The Kinks,
Jawbox,
Bobby Womack,
Sister Nancy,
the Sonics,
Brick, Brick, Brick, Brick.
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.