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 Gambia and from Seoul.
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 1961 to 1971.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Halifax and Lagos.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Manila 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 1979 at the first Second Layer practice in a loft in South London.
I was working on the synthesizer sounds with much patience.
I was there when Michael McDonald 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 Bobby Byrd to the crunk kids.
I played it at the Astoria.
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 Notorious Big And Bone Thugs. All the underground hits.
All Pantytec tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Robert Wyatt record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal jazz hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '50s cut and another box set from the '80s.
I hear you're buying a rhodes and a linndrum and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Sonny Sharrock record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your clarinet and bought an organ.
I hear that you and your band have sold your organ and bought a clarinet.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Visage,
Alison Limerick,
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks,
Terrestrial Tones,
Jacques Brel,
Kayak,
Panda Bear,
Jerry's Kids,
Ice-T,
London Community Gospel Choir,
Eden Ahbez,
The Moleskins,
Crime,
The Velvet Underground,
Siouxsie and the Banshees,
The Last Poets,
Lungfish,
Mission of Burma,
Boz Scaggs,
The Sisters of Mercy,
Lightning Bolt,
Ten City,
Desert Stars,
The Monochrome Set,
Das Ding,
The Pretty Things,
48th St. Collective,
Erykah Badu,
CMW,
Crispy Ambulance,
New York Dolls,
Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft,
One Last Wish,
Bobby Womack,
These Immortal Souls,
Icehouse,
Derrick May,
The Move,
Boogie Down Productions,
Echospace,
Gregory Isaacs,
Jeru the Damaja,
Suburban Knight,
Funkadelic,
Flipper,
Bang on a Can All-Stars,
Stiv Bators,
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band,
Urselle,
Angry Samoans,
Ultramagnetic MC's,
Fear,
Sugar Minott,
Newcleus,
ABBA,
Girls At Our Best!,
D'Angelo,
the Swans,
Vainqueur,
The Wake,
the Normal, the Normal, the Normal, the Normal.
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.