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 Vanuatu and from Manila.
But I was there.
I was there in 1975.
I was there at the first Throbbing Gristle 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 1961 to 1971.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Beijing and Calgary.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Tokyo 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 1979 at the first Second Layer practice in a loft in South London.
I was working on the snare sounds with much patience.
I was there when Robert Palmer 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 Fat Boys to the rock kids.
I played it at the Roxy.
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 Swans. All the underground hits.
All The Trojans tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Subhumans record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal rock 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 an organ and a theremin 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 sitar and bought an oboe.
I hear that you and your band have sold your oboe and bought a sitar.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Yazoo,
Brand Nubian,
Black Sheep,
Robert Wyatt,
The Real Kids,
James Chance & The Contortions,
Lonnie Liston Smith,
Fear,
Delon & Dalcan,
Second Layer,
Alphaville,
Laurel Aitken,
Pharaoh Sanders and the Fire Engines,
Johnny Osbourne,
Anakelly,
Eve St. Jones,
John Lydon,
JFA,
Mary Jane Girls,
Bobbi Humphrey,
Von Mondo,
U.S. Maple,
The Walker Brothers,
Fatback Band,
The Young Rascals,
Justin Hinds & The Dominoes,
The Detroit Cobras,
ABBA,
Big Daddy Kane,
Terry Callier,
Dorothy Ashby,
Joe Finger,
Idris Muhammad,
Nas,
Gian Franco Pienzio,
Josef K,
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds,
The Wake,
Gary Puckett & The Union Gap,
Dual Sessions,
Slick Rick,
Babytalk,
B.T. Express,
June of 44,
The Doors,
World's Most,
Erasure,
Red Lorry Yellow Lorry,
The Grass Roots,
Funky Four + One,
Underground Resistance,
Brothers Johnson,
Larry & the Blue Notes,
T.S.O.L.,
Nirvana,
Ronnie Foster,
Lyres,
Interpol,
Ultimate Spinach,
The Kinks,
The Vogues,
Oneida,
Porter Ricks,
The Sound, The Sound, The Sound, The Sound.
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.