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 France and from London.
But I was there.

I was there in 1968.
I was there at the first Can show in Cologne.
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 1962 to 1978.
I'm losing my edge.

To all the kids in Tokyo and Berlin.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Brooklynites in little jackets and borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered eighties.

But I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge, but I was there.
I was there.
But I was there.

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 1974 at the first Suicide practices in a loft in New York City.
I was working on the organ 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 Daft Punk to the rock kids.
I played it at CBGB's.
Everybody thought I was crazy.
We all know.
I was there.
I was there.
I've never been wrong.

I used to work in the record store.
I had everything before anyone.
I was there in the Paradise Garage DJ booth with Larry Levan.
I was there in Jamaica during the great sound clashes.
I woke up naked on the beach in Ibiza in 1988.

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 Beach Boys. All the underground hits. All the Modern Lovers tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of Every Niagra record on German import. I heard that you have a white label of every seminal Detroit Techno hit - 1985, '86, '87. I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '60s cut and Another box set from the '70s.

I hear you're buying a synthesizer and an arpeggiator and are throwing your computer out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Yaz record.

I hear that you and your band have sold your guitars and bought turntables.
I hear that you and your band have sold your turntables and bought guitars.

I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.

But have you seen my records? This Heat, Pere Ubu, Outsiders, Nation of Ulysses, Mars, The Trojans, The Black Dice, Todd Terry, the Germs, Section 25, Althea and Donna, Sexual harassment, a-ha, Pere Ubu, Dorothy Ashby, PIL, the Fania All-Stars, the Bar-Kays, the Human League, the Normal, Lou Reed, Scott Walker, Monks, Niagra,

Joy Division, Lower 48, the Association, Sun Ra,
Scientists, Royal Trux, 10cc,

Eric B. and Rakim, Index, Basic Channel, Soulsonic Force ("just hit me"!), Juan Atkins, David Axelrod, Electric Prunes, Gil! Scott! Heron!, the Slits, Faust, Mantronix, Pharaoh Sanders and the Fire Engines, the Swans, the Soft Cell, the Sonics, the Sonics, the Sonics, the Sonics.

You don't know what you really want. (x15)


Lyrics submitted by simonster

Losing My Edge Lyrics as written by James Jeremiah Murphy

Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.

Lyrics powered by LyricFind

Losing My Edge song meanings
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32 Comments

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  • +5
    General Comment

    i interviewed James Murphy for DJmag when this came out and asked him whether it was dangerous putting humour into songs and he told me that the message in this is totally serious. he did feel washed up, and to a degree he was. his band had split and he was starting all over again.

    obviously the stuff about being at the Suicide practices isn't for real, but is a way of demonstrating that no matter where you've been, you can still come crashing out of the inner circle.

    it's all brilliant, but my favourite line is where he admits that the people that have surpassed him are "actually really, really nice." that stops it being bitter and makes the song gives the song a sad edge to go against the humour.

    there are so many jokes hidden in this for people who love music that that adds another level to everything. throw in the list of his records at the end and you've got a song that works on so many levels.

    i'd rate this as perhaps the best song this century, especially as the production is mindblowing. this record started this current wave of indie dance music. back in 2001 (or there abouts) james told me he wanted to make dance music that was also punk rock - not just layer beats under guitars or lay guitars over a dance track. with this, and House Of Jealous Lovers by The Rapture (which he and Tim Goldsworthy produced as the DFA), he totally achieved that aim.

    PS The DFA mix of Dare by the Gorillaz is up there with the best remixes ever. James Murphy is, in my opinion, the most important man in music today. i'm quite a fan.

    jameskendallon February 26, 2007   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    Oh man, this is so great. I heard it before ALL of you losers.

    joyusachoobafbon June 22, 2006   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    Ultimately this is a very sad, yet defining song. Passing the buck to the younger generation of music lovers. I like the comment James had about it: 'It still kinda weighs on me a bit', because we keep getting better and better at playing it live." Heh, how ironic. I also like how the website has a picture of a disco ball with pieces missing...brilliant

    TrendyClockworkon July 20, 2006   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    i disagree this song is not about making fun of hipster culture. i believe its more about his envy that he is no longer a hipster. he is " losing his edge ". he dose not hate the hipsters as many posts suggest

    "But I'm losing my edge to better-looking people with better ideas and more talent. And they're actually really, really nice."

    his jealousy shows trough in many lines, recalling all the things he has done which could be regarded as cool

    "I was the first guy playing Daft Punk to the rock kids"

    also when he reals off the large list of bands i feel he is more frustrated than angry telling you about all the records he owns in an attempt to prove him self worthy of still being cool.

    i could be wrong tho who knows

    tell-me-whaton November 08, 2006   Link
  • +1
    Lyric Correction

    "I heard you have a compilation of every good song ever done by anybody. Every great song by the Beach Boys. All the underground hits. All the Modern Lovers tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Niagra record on German import."

    I really think it's Peech Boys and not Beach Boys. They fit more in the sentence above due to the fact that they were a garage hip hop band in NYC.

    What do you think?

    joshfinnieon August 12, 2011   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    Good Lyrics =)

    But the sound "give it up" of lcd, it is more unique

    Try to post the lyric.

    soyeron October 21, 2004   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    I'd like to see more LCD lyrics as well. I can't work out some of the lines in On Repeat, for instance.

    ReActoron February 05, 2005   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    Great song.

    Aboot being cool, and trying too hard and such.

    Nightfreakon February 06, 2005   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    It seems like it's also sort of recalling a lot of underground music history from the 60s, 70s and such. Can, Captain Beefheart, CBGB's, proto-punk, punk & post-punk and dance & electronic.

    I didn't know until reading the lyrics that he mentioned PiL (Public Image Ltd), and first time I heard it, I was thinking that it was kind of like a PiL song.

    Balleron August 17, 2005   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    I think it's about an "ageing hipster" type of person. Someone who was there in the beginning of those underground bands in the 60's and 70's, and now he's "losing his edge" to all of the young kids who know all about these bands, trying to be cool. And he's kind of defending himself, telling that even though he's older, he's still cool because he was there in the beginning and he still knows all of this.

    It's kind of a little message to all those "indie kids" who consider themselves to be super cool because they think they're the only ones who know about all these bands, and who pick stuff up because it's "cool".

    Mercurybornon September 08, 2005   Link

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