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 Kazakhstan and from Winnipeg.
But I was there.
I was there in 1976.
I was there at the first Wire show in Watford.
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 1968 to 1979.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Johannesburg and Toronto.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Accra 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 chamberlin sounds with much patience.
I was there when Holger Czukay 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 Jandek to the techno kids.
I played it at Trash.
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 Toasters. All the underground hits.
All Tim Buckley tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Major Organ And The Adding Machine record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal rock 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 guitar and a synthesizer and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Tropical Tobacco record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your arpeggiator and bought a clarinet.
I hear that you and your band have sold your clarinet and bought an arpeggiator.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Erasure,
Althea and Donna,
Pharoah Sanders,
Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth,
Organ,
The Smoke,
Tommy Roe,
The Knickerbockers,
Niagra,
Audionom,
Echospace,
The Last Poets,
Das Ding,
Silicon Teens,
Oblivians,
EPMD,
Main Source,
Curtis Mayfield,
Barbara Tucker,
Boredoms,
Monks,
The Motions,
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five,
Oppenheimer Analysis,
Hoover,
Q and Not U,
Rakim,
Magma,
Gang of Four,
Alton Ellis,
Patti Smith,
Hasil Adkins,
Neu!,
Gichy Dan,
Qualms,
Ultramagnetic MC's,
Frankie Knuckles,
Minor Threat,
Make Up,
New York Dolls,
Monolake,
The Music Machine,
Black Bananas,
Mark Hollis,
Tears for Fears,
Derrick Morgan,
Radio Birdman,
The Pretty Things,
Joey Negro,
Tubeway Army,
Arthur Verocai,
Average White Band,
Warsaw,
James White and The Blacks,
Lungfish,
Lebanon Hanover,
Youth Brigade,
The Misunderstood,
The Seeds,
The Techniques,
a-ha,
The United States of America,
Fluxion, Fluxion, Fluxion, Fluxion.
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.