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 Indonesia and from Mumbai.
But I was there.
I was there in 1979.
I was there at the first Second Layer show in South London.
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 1960 to 1977.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Lagos and Johannesburg.
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 1976 at the first Feelies practice in a loft in Haledon.
I was working on the mellotron sounds with much patience.
I was there when David Bowie 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 Wyatt to the grunge kids.
I played it at Cafe Wha.
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 Parry Music. All the underground hits.
All Rapeman tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Thompson Twins 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 '60s cut and another box set from the '90s.
I hear you're buying a sitar and a mellotron and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a The Last Poets record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your theremin and bought a synthesizer.
I hear that you and your band have sold your synthesizer and bought a theremin.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Funkadelic,
Bad Manners,
Vaughan Mason & Crew,
Crime,
Junior Murvin,
Brothers Johnson,
The Moody Blues,
B.T. Express,
Louis and Bebe Barron,
Kurtis Blow,
Alison Limerick,
CMW,
Reuben Wilson,
Howard Jones,
Guru Guru,
Curtis Mayfield,
Lower 48,
Mantronix,
Surgeon,
Aswad,
Bobby Womack,
Angry Samoans,
Oppenheimer Analysis,
This Heat,
Marine Girls,
Judy Mowatt,
Soul Sonic Force,
Joensuu 1685,
the Sonics,
Second Layer,
Wighnomy Brothers & Robag Wruhme,
The Music Machine,
Johnny Osbourne,
Johnny Clarke,
EPMD,
The Pretty Things,
Lightning Bolt,
Dark Day,
Index,
The Doors,
Visionaries,LMNO, T- Love & Iriscience,
Susan Cadogan,
Rapeman,
Black Bananas,
Josef K,
Gang Starr,
Marcia Griffiths,
Ituana,
The Slits,
Hoover,
The Jesus and Mary Chain,
Pierre Henry,
Audionom,
Aloha Tigers,
Yusef Lateef,
James White and The Blacks,
Pantytec,
The Buckinghams,
Cymande,
Warren Ellis, Warren Ellis, Warren Ellis, Warren Ellis.
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.