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 Swaziland and from Tehran.
But I was there.
I was there in 1983.
I was there at the first Art of Noise show in London.
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 1965 to 1971.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Manchester and Taipei.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Bologna 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 arpeggiator sounds with much patience.
I was there when David Bowie 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 New York Dolls to the jazz 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 The Beau Brummels. All the underground hits.
All Soft Cell tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Barbara Tucker record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal crunk hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '60s cut and another box set from the '90s.
I hear you're buying a guitar and a güiro and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a The Star Department 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?
Quadrant,
The Red Krayola,
Eden Ahbez,
Scrapy,
Erasure,
Chrome,
Grandmaster Flash,
Pharoah Sanders,
Ash Ra Tempel,
The Knickerbockers,
Kauko Röyhkä ja Narttu,
Siouxsie and the Banshees,
Piero Umiliani,
Marvin Gaye,
The Blackbyrds,
Black Sheep,
K-Klass,
Animal Collective,
Bill Wells,
Japan,
Duran Duran,
Magma,
The Gap Band,
the Fania All-Stars,
AZ,
The Velvet Underground,
The Offenders,
Cymande,
Nik Kershaw,
Grauzone,
The Invisible,
Justin Hinds & The Dominoes,
The Electric Prunes,
China Crisis,
Aswad,
These Immortal Souls,
Liliput,
Nico,
Darondo,
Glenn Branca,
The J.B.'s,
The Gories,
Ludus,
Bluetip,
Kaleidoscope,
The Slackers,
Lonnie Liston Smith,
Gang of Four,
The Standells,
Lizzy Mercier Descloux,
Ponytail,
Heaven 17,
Tomorrow,
Jeru the Damaja,
Angels of Light & Akron/Family,
Agent Orange,
DeepChord presents Echospace,
Gregory Isaacs,
Intrusion,
Little Man,
Albert Ayler, Albert Ayler, Albert Ayler, Albert Ayler.
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.