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 Italy and from Lyon.
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 Jakarta and Manila.
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 1971 at the first Neu! practice in a loft in Düsseldorf.
I was working on the 808 sounds with much patience.
I was there when Tom Verlaine 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 Vaughan Mason & Crew to the crunk kids.
I played it at the 40 Watt.
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 Men They Couldn't Hang. All the underground hits.
All Deakin tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Pierre Henry record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal rap hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '70s cut and another box set from the '90s.
I hear you're buying a chamberlin and a rhodes and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Index record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your rhodes and bought a güiro.
I hear that you and your band have sold your güiro and bought a rhodes.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Darondo,
K-Klass,
Erykah Badu,
Bob Dylan,
David Axelrod,
Marmalade,
A Flock of Seagulls,
Aural Exciters,
Q65,
Gil Scott Heron,
The Last Poets,
Howard Jones,
Neil Young & Crazy Horse,
Idris Muhammad,
Notorious Big And Bone Thugs,
The Residents,
Model 500,
The Tremeloes,
Mantronix,
Second Layer,
Young Marble Giants,
the Human League,
Sly & The Family Stone,
Alphaville,
Pylon,
Duran Duran,
London Community Gospel Choir,
Public Enemy,
Electric Light Orchestra,
Oblivians,
The Slits,
Sun Ra Arkestra,
CMW,
Black Flag,
Motorama,
Wighnomy Brothers & Robag Wruhme,
Dual Sessions,
Brothers Johnson,
X-102,
the Germs,
Masters at Work,
The Vogues,
Eurythmics,
Wolf Eyes,
Robert Wyatt,
Brand Nubian,
Tropical Tobacco,
Pulsallama,
Robert Hood,
Stereo Dub,
The Gladiators,
Davy DMX,
Blossom Toes,
Curtis Mayfield,
The Alarm Clocks,
Guru Guru,
Cabaret Voltaire,
Cybotron,
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark,
Pere Ubu,
the Normal, the Normal, the Normal, the Normal.
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.