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 East Timor and from Glasgow.
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 1965 to 1971.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Bremen and Paris.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Lyon 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 Wire practice in a loft in Watford.
I was working on the marimba sounds with much patience.
I was there when Tom Verlaine 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 Supertramp to the electroclash 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 Joyce Sims. All the underground hits.
All Archie Shepp tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Ronnie Foster 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 '80s cut and another box set from the '90s.
I hear you're buying a theremin and a clarinet and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Wally Richardson record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your rhodes and bought a güiro.
I hear that you and your band have sold your güiro and bought a rhodes.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Crash Course in Science,
John Holt,
Excepter,
Rufus Thomas,
Drexciya,
Second Layer,
Crooked Eye,
Kerrie Biddell,
Subhumans,
The Names,
Yaz,
Scan 7,
Ludus,
Outsiders,
The Doobie Brothers,
The Last Poets,
The Grass Roots,
The Divine Comedy,
The Trojans,
Con Funk Shun,
China Crisis,
8 Eyed Spy,
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks,
Bobby Byrd,
Ajijia Myrayebe,
48th St. Collective,
KRS-One,
Oppenheimer Analysis,
Mary Jane Girls,
Soul Sonic Force,
Man Eating Sloth,
The Moody Blues,
Pierre Henry,
Gian Franco Pienzio,
MC5,
Eric Dolphy,
Richard Hell and the Voidoids,
Selector Dub Narcotic,
H. Thieme,
Girls At Our Best!,
Amon Düül,
Barry Ungar,
Laurel Aitken,
The Leaves,
The Seeds,
Maleditus Sound,
Vladislav Delay,
Fela Kuti,
Negative Approach,
Sonny Sharrock,
Marmalade,
Lou Reed & John Cale,
The Vogues,
Todd Terry,
Josef K,
Roxy Music,
The Golliwogs,
Popol Vuh,
Banda Bassotti,
Japan,
The Fire Engines,
Essential Logic, Essential Logic, Essential Logic, Essential Logic.
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.