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 Venezuela and from Philadelphia.
But I was there.
I was there in 1976.
I was there at the first Soft Boys show in Cambridge.
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 1975.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Toronto and Edmonton.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Jakarta 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 1973 at the first Television practice in a loft in New York.
I was working on the synthesizer sounds with much patience.
I was there when Robert Palmer 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 Robert Hood to the techno kids.
I played it at Trash.
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 Pussy Galore. All the underground hits.
All The Five Americans tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal grunge 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 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 Kaleidoscope record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your arpeggiator and bought a güiro.
I hear that you and your band have sold your güiro and bought an arpeggiator.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Wire,
the Germs,
OOIOO,
Gang Gang Dance,
Essential Logic,
Kerri Chandler,
Lee Hazlewood,
Rakim,
Von Mondo,
Jimmy McGriff,
Marshall Jefferson,
Basic Channel,
the Human League,
ABBA,
Lindisfarne,
X-Ray Spex,
R.M.O.,
The Cure,
The Fire Engines,
The Slits,
Faust,
Cabaret Voltaire,
Public Enemy,
The Names,
Slick Rick,
The Blues Magoos,
Suburban Knight,
Matthew Halsall,
The Peanut Butter Conspiracy,
The Cowsills,
Inner City,
Joyce Sims,
Bootsy's Rubber Band,
Rosa Yemen,
This Heat,
Second Layer,
Ornette Coleman,
Roy Ayers Ubiquity,
Iggy Pop,
Con Funk Shun,
Franke,
The Motions,
Dennis Brown,
Avey Tare & Kría Brekkan,
Can,
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark,
Eurythmics,
The Angels of Light,
Lightning Bolt,
Mission of Burma,
Young Marble Giants,
These Immortal Souls,
Peter and Kerry,
Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie xx,
Idris Muhammad,
Robert Görl,
Be Bop Deluxe,
Fugazi,
Supertramp,
The Shadows of Knight,
Mr. Review,
CMW,
Byron Stingily, Byron Stingily, Byron Stingily, Byron Stingily.
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.