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 Japan and from Jakarta.
But I was there.
I was there in 1973.
I was there at the first Television show in New York.
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 Halifax and Seoul.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Spokane 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 1967 at the first Rodriguez practice in a loft in Detroit.
I was working on the clarinet sounds with much patience.
I was there when Nile Rodgers 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 Pulsallama to the rock 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 Manfred Mann's Earth Band. All the underground hits.
All Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every The Dead C record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal techno 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 an arpeggiator and a chamberlin and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Aaron Thompson record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your harpsichord and bought a clarinet.
I hear that you and your band have sold your clarinet and bought a harpsichord.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Lonnie Liston Smith,
Moby Grape,
The Mighty Diamonds,
Sly & The Family Stone,
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks,
Bluetip,
Todd Rundgren,
Jacques Brel,
James White and The Blacks,
Robert Görl,
Babytalk,
Dead Boys,
Simply Red,
Accadde A,
Unwound,
Rod Modell,
Alphaville,
The Trojans,
Dave Gahan,
Eric B and Rakim,
The Names,
Oppenheimer Analysis,
Traffic Nightmare,
Blancmange,
A Flock of Seagulls,
Roger Hodgson,
Public Enemy,
Notorious BIG live in Amsterdam,
Dorothy Ashby,
Fela Kuti,
Marc Almond,
Theoretical Girls,
The Busters,
Flash Fearless,
Todd Terry,
Liaisons Dangereuses,
Reagan Youth,
Bootsy's Rubber Band,
The Shadows of Knight,
Swell Maps,
Wally Richardson,
Gastr Del Sol,
Fat Boys,
Parry Music,
Josef K,
Camberwell Now,
The Stooges,
James Chance & The Contortions,
Brand Nubian,
Ice-T,
Rakim,
Prince Buster,
Lizzy Mercier Descloux,
Wire,
Anthony Braxton,
Toni Rubio,
Erykah Badu,
The Remains,
Vainqueur,
Sandy B,
Ultimate Spinach,
Cameo, Cameo, Cameo, Cameo.
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.