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 Mali and from New York.
But I was there.
I was there in 1979.
I was there at the first Josef K show in Edinburgh.
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 1963 to 1971.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Johannesburg and Houston.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Bologna 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 1970 at the first Onyeabor practice in a loft in Enugu.
I was working on the organ 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 Excepter to the disco 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 Scion. All the underground hits.
All Stiv Bators tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Barrington Levy 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 '70s cut and another box set from the '80s.
I hear you're buying a synthesizer and a chamberlin and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Faraquet record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your theremin and bought a sitar.
I hear that you and your band have sold your sitar and bought a theremin.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Scratch Acid,
ABC,
Swell Maps,
Trumans Water,
David Axelrod,
Nils Olav,
Gang Green,
The Raincoats,
Gastr Del Sol,
Tubeway Army,
Alphaville,
Wally Richardson,
Adolescents,
Connie Case,
Sad Lovers and Giants,
Camouflage,
The Peanut Butter Conspiracy,
Ohio Players,
Country Joe & The Fish,
Ten City,
Can,
Reagan Youth,
Heavy D & The Boyz,
Black Sheep,
Magma,
the Association,
Essential Logic,
The Index,
The Cowsills,
Sugar Minott,
Agitation Free,
Ken Boothe,
The Men They Couldn't Hang,
Tommy Roe,
Minnie Riperton,
Terror Squad Feat. Camron,
Leonard Cohen,
Talk Talk,
Surgeon,
Sparks,
Sister Nancy,
Derrick Morgan,
The Beau Brummels,
In Retrospect,
Charles Mingus,
Sun Ra Arkestra,
The Electric Prunes,
Ajijia Myrayebe,
Kurtis Blow,
Kayak,
Gil Scott Heron,
Gang of Four,
Fort Wilson Riot,
The Toasters,
The Grass Roots,
Shuggie Otis,
Sex Pistols,
Make Up,
X-102,
Subhumans,
Japan, Japan, Japan, Japan.
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.