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 Eritrea and from Tokyo.
But I was there.
I was there in 1965.
I was there at the first Beefheart show in Lancaster.
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 1961 to 1973.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Madrid and Lagos.
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 1970 at the first Onyeabor practice in a loft in Enugu.
I was working on the oboe 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 Absolute Body Control to the grime kids.
I played it at the Troubador.
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 Mandrill. All the underground hits.
All Art Ensemble Of Chicago tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every the Germs 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 '80s cut and another box set from the '80s.
I hear you're buying a mellotron and a sitar and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Robert Wyatt record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your spring reverb and bought a mellotron.
I hear that you and your band have sold your mellotron and bought a spring reverb.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Pulsallama,
Country Joe & The Fish,
Drexciya,
Erasure,
Wasted Youth,
Scientists,
Crash Course in Science,
The Saints,
T.S.O.L.,
Make Up,
Camberwell Now,
Quantec,
Andrew Ashong & Theo Parrish,
Sound Behaviour,
Symarip,
The Beau Brummels,
Erykah Badu,
The American Breed,
Manfred Mann's Earth Band,
Brothers Johnson,
Hoover,
Prince Buster,
MDC,
Junior Murvin,
Freddie Wadling,
T. Rex,
John Lydon,
Black Bananas,
The Divine Comedy,
John Foxx,
Throbbing Gristle,
Big Daddy Kane,
Sandy B,
Peter & Gordon,
Deadbeat,
Monks,
Sparks,
MC5,
Cluster,
Kango’s Stein Massive,
Vainqueur,
Television,
ABC,
Arthur Verocai,
Agitation Free,
Liliput,
Rosa Yemen,
Aloha Tigers,
The United States of America,
Interpol,
Yellowson,
Electric Light Orchestra,
The Human League,
Severed Heads,
PIL,
Robert Wyatt,
The Busters,
Public Enemy,
Gian Franco Pienzio,
The Names,
The Searchers,
Shuggie Otis,
Derrick May, Derrick May, Derrick May, Derrick May.
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.