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 Delhi.
But I was there.
I was there in 1979.
I was there at the first Josef K show in Edinburgh.
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 1961 to 1979.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Salvador and Bologna.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Glasgow 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 1976 at the first Soft Boys practice in a loft in Cambridge.
I was working on the synthesizer 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 James Chance & The Contortions to the punk kids.
I played it at the Crocodile.
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 Joe Smooth. All the underground hits.
All Drive Like Jehu tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every X-101 record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal grunge hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '50s cut and another box set from the '90s.
I hear you're buying a mellotron and a güiro and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a The Saints record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your arpeggiator and bought an organ.
I hear that you and your band have sold your organ and bought an arpeggiator.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
the Slits,
Alphaville,
Althea and Donna,
Kango’s Stein Massive,
Pole,
The Divine Comedy,
the Normal,
The Flesh Eaters,
Ralphi Rosario,
The Motions,
Cymande,
Kurtis Blow,
Scan 7,
Glambeats Corp.,
Ken Boothe,
Mad Mike,
Chrome,
Pet Shop Boys,
Half Japanese,
Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft,
Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson,
Los Fastidios,
Porter Ricks,
Ohio Players,
The Sisters of Mercy,
Drexciya,
Black Flag,
Scion,
The Pop Group,
Brothers Johnson,
Banda Bassotti,
China Crisis,
The Peanut Butter Conspiracy,
Clear Light,
Subhumans,
Sound Behaviour,
The Evens,
Ronnie Foster,
Pylon,
The Moody Blues,
The Trojans,
Lalann,
Rahsaan Roland Kirk,
Monks,
The Human League,
The Grass Roots,
The Real Kids,
The Kinks,
Arthur Verocai,
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks,
Gang of Four,
Pagans,
Bobby Sherman,
Oppenheimer Analysis,
Lalo Schifrin,
Animal Collective,
Terror Squad Feat. Camron,
The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band,
Fifty Foot Hose,
Drive Like Jehu,
The Shadows of Knight,
Minutemen, Minutemen, Minutemen, Minutemen.
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.