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 East Timor and from Seoul.
But I was there.
I was there in 1983.
I was there at the first Art of Noise show in London.
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 1963 to 1974.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Accra and New York.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Shanghai 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 1973 at the first Television practice in a loft in New York.
I was working on the clarinet 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 Dorothy Ashby to the techno kids.
I played it at the Spitz.
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 Music Machine. All the underground hits.
All Wings tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Organ 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 '70s cut and another box set from the '90s.
I hear you're buying a synthesizer and a 808 and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Minnie Riperton record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your oboe and bought a clarinet.
I hear that you and your band have sold your clarinet and bought an oboe.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Lalann,
Hoover,
The Evens,
Unwound,
The Durutti Column,
Angels of Light & Akron/Family,
48th St. Collective,
The Busters,
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks,
Agent Orange,
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band,
PIL,
Country Joe & The Fish,
D'Angelo,
Tubeway Army,
Wire,
Barclay James Harvest,
Minor Threat,
Andrew Ashong & Theo Parrish,
Mary Jane Girls,
Jacob Miller,
Joyce Sims,
Eli Mardock,
The Martian,
Bill Wells,
Ten City,
Yellowson,
The Blackbyrds,
Ponytail,
The Gun Club,
Theoretical Girls,
The J.B.'s,
Country Teasers,
Leonard Cohen,
Freddie Wadling,
X-102,
Half Japanese,
Gian Franco Pienzio,
Pylon,
New York Dolls,
Basic Channel,
Bootsy Collins,
James White and The Blacks,
Ituana,
Marc Romboy vs. Booka Shade,
Faust,
Roxy Music,
Tom Boy,
Sticky Fingaz feat. Raekwon,
Tropical Tobacco,
Wasted Youth,
Neu!,
The Royal Family And The Poor,
Marc Almond,
Bauhaus,
Blancmange,
Nirvana,
Tim Buckley,
Average White Band,
Scrapy, Scrapy, Scrapy, Scrapy.
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.