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 Djibouti and from Johannesburg.
But I was there.
I was there in 1983.
I was there at the first Bronski Beat show in Brixton.
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 1960 to 1975.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Taipei and Madrid.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Calgary 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 1968 at the first Can practice in a loft in Cologne.
I was working on the clarinet 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 Main Source to the techno 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 Marvin Gaye. All the underground hits.
All Marshall Jefferson tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Scrapy record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal grime hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '50s cut and another box set from the '70s.
I hear you're buying a spring reverb and a clarinet and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Urselle record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your mellotron and bought an arpeggiator.
I hear that you and your band have sold your arpeggiator and bought a mellotron.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Quadrant,
Dark Day,
the Germs,
X-101,
Cybotron,
Colin Newman,
Cabaret Voltaire,
Agent Orange,
Wasted Youth,
Whodini,
Buzzcocks,
Saccharine Trust,
The Fortunes,
Sonic Youth,
Erykah Badu,
Clear Light,
Negative Approach,
Cecil Taylor,
The American Breed,
DNA,
Symarip,
Index,
Joey Negro,
Johnny Osbourne,
The Invisible,
Lalo Schifrin,
The Kinks,
The Litter,
Glenn Branca,
Rowland S Howard / Lydia Lunch,
Pet Shop Boys,
The Walker Brothers,
The Star Department,
Sunsets and Hearts,
The Searchers,
Roxy Music,
The Electric Prunes,
The Names,
Popol Vuh,
The Slits,
Freddie Wadling,
The Trojans,
Richard Hell and the Voidoids,
Bobby Byrd,
The Alarm Clocks,
Byron Stingily,
Television Personalities,
Depeche Mode,
The Wake,
Pulsallama,
Minutemen,
Dorothy Ashby,
Silicon Teens,
Prince Buster,
The Busters,
Hashim,
Al Stewart,
Piero Umiliani,
The Angels of Light,
Moebius,
Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson,
Little Man, Little Man, Little Man, Little Man.
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.