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 Guinea-Bissau and from Calgary.
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 1966 to 1976.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Paris and Lyon.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Bremen 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 1983 at the first Bronski Beat practice in a loft in Brixton.
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 David Axelrod to the crunk 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 The Gladiators. All the underground hits.
All Alison Limerick tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Underground Resistance record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal dance hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '60s cut and another box set from the '70s.
I hear you're buying a spring reverb and an arpeggiator and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Lee Hazlewood record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your arpeggiator and bought a snare.
I hear that you and your band have sold your snare and bought an arpeggiator.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Q and Not U,
Kerri Chandler,
Magazine,
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five,
Scion,
Oblivians,
Popol Vuh,
The Last Poets,
EPMD,
10cc,
Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth,
Electric Prunes,
Can,
Leonard Cohen,
ABC,
Robert Görl,
Niagra,
Jeff Lynne,
Thee Headcoats,
Blancmange,
Sandy B,
UT,
Matthew Bourne,
Liliput,
Althea and Donna,
Josef K,
Terry Callier,
Marshall Jefferson,
The New Christs,
Deadbeat,
Yusef Lateef,
The Searchers,
Faraquet,
Sad Lovers and Giants,
Derrick May,
Hashim,
The Velvet Underground,
Iggy Pop,
Ituana,
Siouxsie and the Banshees,
The Alarm Clocks,
The Index,
Terrestrial Tones,
Super Lover Cee & Casanova Rud,
Radio Birdman,
Delta 5,
Dorothy Ashby,
Pussy Galore,
Simply Red,
Unrelated Segments,
FM Einheit,
Trumans Water,
Man Parrish,
Organ,
The Skatalites,
Dawn Penn,
A Flock of Seagulls,
Bootsy Collins,
David Axelrod,
Sexual Harrassment,
Livin' Joy,
The Kinks, The Kinks, The Kinks, The Kinks.
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.