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 South Sudan and from Copenhagen.
But I was there.
I was there in 1971.
I was there at the first Selda show in Istanbul.
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 1964 to 1972.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Cairo and Stockholm.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Beijing 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 clarinet sounds with much patience.
I was there when Lou Reed 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 Sandy B to the techno kids.
I played it at the Roxy.
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 Lou Reed & John Cale. All the underground hits.
All A Certain Ratio tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Rosa Yemen 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 '70s cut and another box set from the '70s.
I hear you're buying an oboe and a guitar and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your snare and bought a sitar.
I hear that you and your band have sold your sitar and bought a snare.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Pet Shop Boys,
The Music Machine,
Funkadelic,
Zapp,
Neil Young & Crazy Horse,
Roxy Music,
Sunsets and Hearts,
Traffic Nightmare,
Lee Hazlewood,
Joe Smooth,
Letta Mbulu,
Sugar Minott,
F. McDonald,
Bad Manners,
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five,
Pagans,
Cabaret Voltaire,
Livin' Joy,
Jeff Lynne,
Louis and Bebe Barron,
Rakim,
The Count Five,
The Moleskins,
The Human League,
Excepter,
The Pretty Things,
Thee Headcoats,
OOIOO,
Rapeman,
The Grass Roots,
Yusef Lateef,
Main Source,
Major Organ And The Adding Machine,
Swell Maps,
the Human League,
Crime,
Joensuu 1685,
Rowland S Howard / Lydia Lunch,
Lizzy Mercier Descloux,
The Leaves,
The Men They Couldn't Hang,
Donny Hathaway,
Sun Ra Arkestra,
Sister Nancy,
Pharaoh Sanders and the Fire Engines,
London Community Gospel Choir,
Flash Fearless,
Vaughan Mason & Crew,
Symarip,
Andrew Hill,
The Dave Clark Five,
The Modern Lovers,
Althea and Donna,
Moby Grape,
Lou Reed,
Alice Coltrane,
Intrusion,
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds,
Lonnie Liston Smith,
the Normal,
Liliput,
Dead Boys, Dead Boys, Dead Boys, Dead Boys.
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.