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 Latvia and from Johannesburg.
But I was there.
I was there in 1968.
I was there at the first Bowie show in Bromley.
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 1979.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Delhi and Mumbai.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Calgary 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 1983 at the first Bronski Beat practice in a loft in Brixton.
I was working on the chamberlin 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 The Trojans to the rock kids.
I played it at Cafe Wha.
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 Howard Jones. All the underground hits.
All Tomorrow tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Kool Moe Dee record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal electroclash hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '50s cut and another box set from the '70s.
I hear you're buying an oboe and an arpeggiator and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Heaven 17 record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your spring reverb and bought a theremin.
I hear that you and your band have sold your theremin and bought a spring reverb.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
MC5,
Wally Richardson,
Lakeside,
Babytalk,
Nation of Ulysses,
New Order,
Grauzone,
Maleditus Sound,
Technova,
Leonard Cohen,
Fatback Band,
The Moody Blues,
Gang Starr,
Thinking Fellers Union Local 282,
D'Angelo,
John Lydon,
Unwound,
Theoretical Girls,
The Evens,
Anthony Braxton,
Flash Fearless,
The Sound,
Mantronix,
Yellowson,
The Mummies,
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five,
Deakin,
Scott Walker + Sunn O))),
Marine Girls,
China Crisis,
Soft Cell,
Sandy B,
Peter and Kerry,
Intrusion,
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band,
Curtis Mayfield,
Drive Like Jehu,
Archie Shepp,
Suburban Knight,
Bush Tetras,
The Fall,
The Walker Brothers,
Terror Squad Feat. Camron,
Basic Channel,
The Doobie Brothers,
Sight & Sound,
Dark Day,
Sunsets and Hearts,
The Fugs,
Trumans Water,
Erykah Badu,
Sun City Girls,
Brass Construction,
Average White Band,
Can,
Big Daddy Kane,
James White and The Blacks,
Lebanon Hanover,
Neu!,
The Buckinghams,
The Toasters,
Magazine,
Connie Case,
Rufus Thomas,
Suicide, Suicide, Suicide, Suicide.
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.