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 South Sudan and from Philadelphia.
But I was there.
I was there in 1971.
I was there at the first Selda show in Istanbul.
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 1965 to 1978.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Shanghai and Tokyo.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Cairo 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 synthesizer 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 Alice Coltrane to the electroclash 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 OOIOO. All the underground hits.
All Jerry's Kids tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Sly & The Family Stone 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 '70s.
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 Zapp record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your clarinet and bought an arpeggiator.
I hear that you and your band have sold your arpeggiator and bought a clarinet.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Underground Resistance,
Dorothy Ashby,
The Detroit Cobras,
Youth Brigade,
Cecil Taylor,
Byron Stingily,
Letta Mbulu,
Pantaleimon,
Kaleidoscope,
The Names,
The Durutti Column,
Junior Murvin,
Country Teasers,
Von Mondo,
The Sisters of Mercy,
The Blackbyrds,
Coldchain, Rosco P., Featuring Pusha T from Clipse & Boo-Bonic,
Public Image Ltd.,
June of 44,
Hot Snakes,
KRS-One,
Nik Kershaw,
The Alarm Clocks,
Crash Course in Science,
The Chocolate Watch Band,
DeepChord presents Echospace,
Lee Hazlewood,
Charles Mingus,
Terrestrial Tones,
Cabaret Voltaire,
The Selecter,
Reuben Wilson,
Alton Ellis,
Magazine,
The Beau Brummels,
D'Angelo,
Lonnie Liston Smith,
James White and The Blacks,
The Barracudas,
Amon Düül,
The Saints,
Metal Thangz,
Mark Hollis,
Avey Tare & Kría Brekkan,
Marc Almond,
Pet Shop Boys,
Unwound,
Dead Boys,
Blancmange,
Mars,
Stockholm Monsters,
Grandmaster Flash,
The Music Machine,
Aswad,
Animal Collective,
Ossler,
The Sound,
John Coltrane,
Bootsy's Rubber Band,
Janne Schatter, Janne Schatter, Janne Schatter, Janne Schatter.
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.