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 New Zealand and from Johannesburg.
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 1962 to 1978.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Winnipeg and Halifax.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Portland 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 1978 at the first Visage practice in a loft in 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 8 Eyed Spy to the disco 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 Donny Hathaway. All the underground hits.
All Lightning Bolt tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Aloha Tigers 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 '90s.
I hear you're buying a chamberlin and a spring reverb and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Manfred Mann's Earth Band record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your arpeggiator and bought a rhodes.
I hear that you and your band have sold your rhodes and bought an arpeggiator.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Byron Stingily,
The Happenings,
Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson,
Donald Byrd,
Thee Headcoats,
H. Thieme,
Ituana,
The Shadows of Knight,
Icehouse,
The Index,
Jacob Miller,
Idris Muhammad,
The Martian,
Loose Ends,
Kaleidoscope,
Gian Franco Pienzio,
Ultravox,
Bill Near,
Spandau Ballet,
Echospace,
Boogie Down Productions,
Roy Ayers Ubiquity,
U.S. Maple,
Funkadelic,
Lalo Schifrin,
Con Funk Shun,
Maleditus Sound,
Japan,
Gang Starr,
Manfred Mann's Earth Band,
Archie Shepp,
JFA,
Roxette,
Fort Wilson Riot,
cv313,
Animal Collective,
L. Decosne,
Slave,
Scott Walker + Sunn O))),
Matthew Halsall,
The United States of America,
Basic Channel,
the Association,
Rites of Spring,
Neil Young,
Terrestrial Tones,
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark,
Aloha Tigers,
Zapp,
Peter Gordon & Love of Life Orchestra,
The Gun Club,
Make Up,
Angels of Light & Akron/Family,
Eric Dolphy,
Albert Ayler,
David Axelrod,
Girls At Our Best!,
The Mojo Men,
Lonnie Liston Smith,
Thompson Twins,
John Foxx,
Andrew Hill,
The Victims,
Cluster,
Pulsallama, Pulsallama, Pulsallama, Pulsallama.
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.