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 Uruguay and from Lille.
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 1969 to 1972.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Beijing and Portland.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Sao Paulo 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 1968 at the first Bowie practice in a loft in Bromley.
I was working on the mellotron sounds with much patience.
I was there when Michael McDonald 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 Susan Cadogan to the grunge 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 A Certain Ratio. All the underground hits.
All Intrusion tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Brass Construction record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal dance 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 theremin and an arpeggiator and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a The Dead C record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your clarinet and bought a marimba.
I hear that you and your band have sold your marimba and bought a clarinet.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Cal Tjader,
Malaria!,
Cecil Taylor,
Section 25,
Anthony Braxton,
Janne Schatter,
The Martian,
Isaac Hayes,
Lyres,
The Velvet Underground,
Crime,
The Pretty Things,
James White and The Blacks,
Stiv Bators,
Jeff Mills,
Harpers Bizarre,
Beasts of Bourbon,
Boz Scaggs,
Ronnie Foster,
Gang of Four,
Moss Icon,
Lonnie Liston Smith,
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark,
Leonard Cohen,
Crash Course in Science,
The Royal Family And The Poor,
Mission of Burma,
The Alarm Clocks,
Louis and Bebe Barron,
Sly & The Family Stone,
Barclay James Harvest,
Blancmange,
The Associates,
The Residents,
Nation of Ulysses,
Max Romeo,
In Retrospect,
Marine Girls,
Duran Duran,
Magazine,
The Dave Clark Five,
Sad Lovers and Giants,
Sound Behaviour,
Brick,
The Vogues,
Arab on Radar,
Johnny Osbourne,
Ash Ra Tempel,
Audionom,
Rosa Yemen,
Simply Red,
The Techniques,
The Fortunes,
Los Fastidios,
Fad Gadget,
Sällskapet,
Sun Ra,
Sugar Minott,
Scrapy,
Outsiders,
Marcia Griffiths,
Kaleidoscope,
Echospace, Echospace, Echospace, Echospace.
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.