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 Tonga and from Delhi.
But I was there.
I was there in 1984.
I was there at the first Arcadia show in 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 1967 to 1976.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Taipei and Taipei.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Johannesburg 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 808 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 Lonnie Liston Smith to the funk kids.
I played it at CBGB's.
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 Vogues. All the underground hits.
All Unrelated Segments tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every OOIOO 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 '60s cut and another box set from the '90s.
I hear you're buying a synthesizer and a spring reverb and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Liaisons Dangereuses record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your marimba and bought a clarinet.
I hear that you and your band have sold your clarinet and bought a marimba.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
The Names,
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five,
Sound Behaviour,
Vainqueur,
Simply Red,
Josef K,
Rapeman,
Crime,
Colin Newman,
DJ Style,
Lou Reed,
OOIOO,
The Remains,
Q and Not U,
Anthony Braxton,
Guru Guru,
The Kinks,
Amon Düül,
Al Stewart,
Masta Ace, Craig G, Kool G Rap, Big Daddy Kane,
Nation of Ulysses,
Lee Hazlewood,
Adolescents,
Bobby Womack,
The Pretty Things,
Swell Maps,
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band,
Ash Ra Tempel,
The Evens,
Smog,
The Moody Blues,
Ultravox,
Underground Resistance,
Pole,
Tropical Tobacco,
Piero Umiliani,
In Retrospect,
Harpers Bizarre,
Grauzone,
Young Marble Giants,
Laurel Aitken,
Ultimate Spinach,
Matthew Bourne,
Babytalk,
Eli Mardock,
Lizzy Mercier Descloux,
Trumans Water,
48th St. Collective,
Aswad,
The Slackers,
Tres Demented,
Scientists,
Andrew Hill,
Michelle Simonal,
Electric Prunes,
Accadde A,
X-102,
Parry Music,
Camouflage,
Fort Wilson Riot,
Scion,
Sixth Finger,
Jesper Dahlbäck,
Pylon, Pylon, Pylon, Pylon.
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.