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 Iran and from Beijing.
But I was there.
I was there in 1976.
I was there at the first Feelies show in Haledon.
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 1967 to 1973.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Paris and Bologna.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Tehran 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 1971 at the first Neu! practice in a loft in Düsseldorf.
I was working on the 808 sounds with much patience.
I was there when Michael McDonald 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 The Selecter 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 Wyatt. All the underground hits.
All Adolescents tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Subhumans record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal punk 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 oboe and a chamberlin and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a The Raincoats record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your guitar and bought a rhodes.
I hear that you and your band have sold your rhodes and bought a guitar.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
A Certain Ratio,
Little Man,
Essential Logic,
Funkadelic,
In Retrospect,
D'Angelo,
Desert Stars,
X-101,
Moebius,
Scratch Acid,
Au Pairs,
The Moody Blues,
Man Parrish,
Absolute Body Control,
Louis and Bebe Barron,
Black Pus,
The Red Krayola,
Liliput,
The Last Poets,
Eden Ahbez,
London Community Gospel Choir,
Laurel Aitken,
The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band,
Pierre Henry,
Notorious Big And Bone Thugs,
Dorothy Ashby,
Soulsonic Force,
Bill Wells,
Visage,
R.M.O.,
Spoonie Gee,
Gang of Four,
New York Dolls,
The Grass Roots,
Tim Buckley,
Ludus,
Althea and Donna,
Marshall Jefferson,
The Cramps,
Patti Smith,
Slick Rick,
The Barracudas,
B.T. Express,
The Saints,
Dennis Brown,
Malaria!,
Pere Ubu,
Half Japanese,
Bootsy's Rubber Band,
Lebanon Hanover,
A Flock of Seagulls,
The Sound,
Harpers Bizarre,
Brick,
Slave,
Darondo,
Rahsaan Roland Kirk,
Quadrant,
Guru Guru,
Excepter,
Kerrie Biddell,
The Cure,
Roger Hodgson,
Jeff Lynne, Jeff Lynne, Jeff Lynne, Jeff Lynne.
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.