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 Armenia and from Hong Kong.
But I was there.
I was there in 1977.
I was there at the first Human League show in Sheffield.
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 1975.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Winnipeg and Woodstock.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school London 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 synthesizer sounds with much patience.
I was there when Captain Beefheart 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 Human League to the electroclash 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 In Retrospect. All the underground hits.
All Sight & Sound tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Alison Limerick 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 '70s cut and another box set from the '80s.
I hear you're buying a synthesizer and a spring reverb and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Byron Stingily record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your clarinet and bought a linndrum.
I hear that you and your band have sold your linndrum and bought a clarinet.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Ash Ra Tempel,
Faust,
Audionom,
Simply Red,
Prince Buster,
Bang on a Can All-Stars,
Silicon Teens,
Archie Shepp,
Lalo Schifrin,
Organ,
X-101,
Nas,
Lonnie Liston Smith,
Black Moon,
The Neon Judgement,
The Divine Comedy,
Franke,
Wire,
Crash Course in Science,
The Count Five,
Terror Squad Feat. Camron,
Crime,
Echospace,
Magma,
The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band,
Kauko Röyhkä ja Narttu,
Warsaw,
Duran Duran,
Rotary Connection,
Aloha Tigers,
John Holt,
Dual Sessions,
Lizzy Mercier Descloux,
Tubeway Army,
Andrew Hill,
Adolescents,
Crispy Ambulance,
Arab on Radar,
Yazoo,
Alice Coltrane,
The Vogues,
the Human League,
Todd Terry,
The Real Kids,
The Music Machine,
Skriet,
Bobby Womack,
Roxette,
The Cosmic Jokers,
Tommy Roe,
Throbbing Gristle,
KRS-One,
The Names,
Essential Logic,
Warren Ellis,
Circle Jerks,
Fluxion,
The American Breed,
Barclay James Harvest,
Lyres,
the Soft Cell,
Minutemen,
Liaisons Dangereuses,
The Wake, The Wake, The Wake, The Wake.
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.