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 France and from London
But I was there

I was there in 1968
I was there at the first Can show in Cologne
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 1962 to 1978
I'm losing my edge

To all the kids in Tokyo and Berlin
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Brooklynites in little jackets and borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered eighties

But I'm losing my edge
I'm losing my edge, but I was there
I was there
But I was there

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 1974 at the first Suicide practices in a loft in New York City
I was working on the organ sounds with much patience
I was there when Captain Beefheart 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 Daft Punk to the rock kids
I played it at CBGB's
Everybody thought I was crazy
We all know
I was there
I was there
I've never been wrong

I used to work in the record store
I had everything before anyone
I was there in the Paradise Garage DJ booth with Larry Levan
I was there in Jamaica during the great sound clashes
I woke up naked on the beach in Ibiza in 1988

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 Beach Boys
All the underground hits
All the Modern Lovers tracks
I heard you have a vinyl of every Niagra record on German import
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal Detroit techno 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 synthesizer and an arpeggiator and are throwing your computer out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Yaz record

I hear that you and your band have sold your guitars and bought turntables
I hear that you and your band have sold your turntables and bought guitars

I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know

But have you seen my records? This Heat, Pere Ubu, Outsiders, Nation of Ulysses, Mars, The Trojans, The Black Dice, Todd Terry, the Germs, Section 25, Althea and Donna, Sexual Harrassment, a-ha, Pere Ubu, Dorothy Ashby, PIL, the Fania All-Stars, the Bar-Kays, the Human League, the Normal, Lou Reed, Scott Walker, Monks, Niagra

Joy Division, Lower 48, the Association, Sun Ra
Scientists, Royal Trux, 10cc

Eric B. and Rakim, Index, Basic Channel, Soulsonic Force (just hit me!), Juan Atkins, David Axelrod, Electric Prunes, Gil! Scott! Heron!, the Slits, Faust, Mantronix, Pharaoh Sanders and the Fire Engines, the Swans, the Soft Cell, the Sonics, the Sonics, the Sonics, the Sonics

You don't know what you really want