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 Sierra Leone and from Delhi.
But I was there.
I was there in 1970.
I was there at the first Onyeabor show in Enugu.
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 Toronto.
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 1977 at the first Mistral practice in a loft in Amsterdam.
I was working on the synthesizer sounds with much patience.
I was there when Robert Palmer 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 The Birthday Party to the techno kids.
I played it at the Hacienda.
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 Victims. All the underground hits.
All Ten City tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Hardrive record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal funk hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '80s cut and another box set from the '90s.
I hear you're buying a chamberlin and a mellotron and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a the Soft Cell record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your rhodes and bought an oboe.
I hear that you and your band have sold your oboe and bought a rhodes.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Barbara Tucker,
Pierre Henry,
Massinfluence,
Crash Course in Science,
John Lydon,
Rapeman,
Dennis Brown,
Outsiders,
Pantaleimon,
The Neon Judgement,
Pulsallama,
D'Angelo,
The Selecter,
Franke,
Suburban Knight,
Archie Shepp,
Whodini,
The Dead C,
Michelle Simonal,
Lou Reed,
Black Bananas,
DNA,
Ten City,
Anthony Braxton,
Deadbeat,
Black Sheep,
Banda Bassotti,
Lakeside,
Q and Not U,
Shuggie Otis,
T. Rex,
Sun City Girls,
Stiv Bators,
Bobby Womack,
Barry Ungar,
Johnny Clarke,
Maleditus Sound,
Mantronix,
De La Soul & Jungle Brothers,
Eden Ahbez,
Brick,
U.S. Maple,
Alice Coltrane,
Erykah Badu,
Aloha Tigers,
John Holt,
Reuben Wilson,
Gastr Del Sol,
Ralphi Rosario,
Gabor Szabo,
Jeff Mills,
Glenn Branca,
The Misunderstood,
Severed Heads,
Robert Hood,
Kaleidoscope,
The Cure,
The Remains,
Sugar Minott,
Index,
Motorama,
New Order,
The Monks, The Monks, The Monks, The Monks.
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.