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 Sri Lanka and from Tokyo.
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 1964 to 1970.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in New York and Spokane.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Sao Paulo 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 snare 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 The Seeds to the rap 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 The Fuzztones. All the underground hits.
All Archie Shepp tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Skriet record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal funk hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '70s cut and another box set from the '90s.
I hear you're buying a snare and a clarinet and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a The Wake record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your clarinet and bought a mellotron.
I hear that you and your band have sold your mellotron and bought a clarinet.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
La Düsseldorf,
Blancmange,
Echospace,
the Soft Cell,
Fad Gadget,
David Axelrod,
The J.B.'s,
Suicide,
Althea and Donna,
Anakelly,
Peter Gordon & Love of Life Orchestra,
Joyce Sims,
Andrew Ashong & Theo Parrish,
Hoover,
Los Fastidios,
Drive Like Jehu,
Ituana,
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five,
Bob Dylan,
The Toasters,
Pantytec,
Vainqueur,
Rahsaan Roland Kirk,
Country Teasers,
Ash Ra Tempel,
Howard Jones,
Justin Hinds & The Dominoes,
Kaleidoscope,
Radiohead,
Blossom Toes,
The Blackbyrds,
Sight & Sound,
The Royal Family And The Poor,
Sam Rivers,
MC5,
Bronski Beat,
Carl Craig,
PIL,
Brick,
The Electric Prunes,
Gregory Isaacs,
The Star Department,
The Dirtbombs,
Albert Ayler,
Man Parrish,
Beasts of Bourbon,
Richard Hell and the Voidoids,
Pantaleimon,
This Heat,
Ultravox,
Soul II Soul,
the Association,
Wally Richardson,
T.S.O.L.,
Lebanon Hanover,
Lonnie Liston Smith,
Motorama,
Mission of Burma,
Skaos,
the Slits,
Bill Near,
JFA, JFA, JFA, JFA.
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.