LCD Soundsystem - "Losing My Edge"

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no, it's not really genius. it's not even scenius.

― NRQ, Thursday, 17 February 2005 10:41 (8 years ago) Permalink

What ambiguity

― Andrew Blood Thames (Andrew Thames), Thursday, 17 February 2005 11:51 (8 years ago) Permalink

How would the Ramones be a "daft" variation on orthodox punk in '75

― Andrew Blood Thames (Andrew Thames), Thursday, 17 February 2005 11:55 (8 years ago) Permalink

they were daft. and punk. not unorthodox. no-one said they were an unorthodox variation on punk. but they were dafter than television. and punk is a bit daft.

― NRQ, Thursday, 17 February 2005 12:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

Yeah it WOULD be pretty crazy to play a Ramones rec at CBGBs in 75

― Andrew Blood Thames (Andrew Thames), Thursday, 17 February 2005 12:16 (8 years ago) Permalink

um, no-one said it was 'crazy' either. the lyrics are about being in on the ground floor of canonic musical scenes. not about being crazy, unorthodox, or daft. (you could say '1974' instead of 1975 i suppose, being pedantic.)

― NRQ, Thursday, 17 February 2005 12:22 (8 years ago) Permalink

This song has one of my fav recent lyrics (actually fuck "one of", it's about the only one that's really got me at all, they're mostly not my thing), and it revolves around EXACTNESS. All the right references, an exact history of the narrator's experiences and credentials as a hipster. Ambiguity doesn't come into it. In fact, ambiguity contradicts its nature and fucks any worth it has. xpost Henry have you HEARD or READ the lyric?

― Andrew Blood Thames (Andrew Thames), Thursday, 17 February 2005 12:22 (8 years ago) Permalink

"I was the first guy playing Daft Punk to the rock kids.
I played it at CBGBs.
Everybody thought I was crazy."

― Andrew Blood Thames (Andrew Thames), Thursday, 17 February 2005 12:23 (8 years ago) Permalink

shit, this is true. i was finding the idea of thinking he didn't mean Daft Punk funny, as per comments upthread. anything can be ambiguous, of course, but i guess for me the ambiguity was pitched up by my image of cbgbs in the era of Daft Punk as a ridiculous punk-tourist trap as related by people who've visited (may be a false conception). this would make playing DP 'crazy' because the people who go are indeed dyed-in-the-wool rock fans (why would playing daft punk to regular rock fans seem crazy? it certainly wasn't considered crazy in england). but playing cbgbs (again according to my idea of what it is these days) would be very far from the edge in 1997-2002. the only time (again, in my mind) that cbgbs was hipster was in the 70s.

― NRQ, Thursday, 17 February 2005 12:33 (8 years ago) Permalink

Well see yr image of the lyric seems like exactly what I took it to mean. Playing CBGBs in the late 90s isn't edgy, but going there and playing the new sounds of the electronica (yeah yuck) "takeover" to a bunch of punk fetishists would be, I think. As you more or less said. Also going by the rest of the song I think we can take it for granted the narrator was around for the venue in the 70s, right?

― Andrew Blood Thames (Andrew Thames), Thursday, 17 February 2005 12:40 (8 years ago) Permalink

it's the w'burg 'sympathy for the devil' ((C) everybode, 2002)

― NRQ, Thursday, 17 February 2005 12:42 (8 years ago) Permalink

"I was the first guy playing Daft Punk to the rock kids.
I played it at CBGBs.
Everybody thought I was crazy."

Bloody hell! When you write it down like that, it's almost like Wesley Willis lyrics.

― James Mitchell (James Mitchell), Thursday, 17 February 2005 13:28 (8 years ago) Permalink

The song is obviously about TIME TRAVEL, duh.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 17 February 2005 18:10 (8 years ago) Permalink

The melody is lifted from Killing Joke's "Change," by the way. FACT!

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 18 February 2005 03:18 (8 years ago) Permalink

What melody?

― Speedhump Bungle (noodle vague), Friday, 18 February 2005 03:21 (8 years ago) Permalink

FACT!

― W i l l (common_person), Friday, 18 February 2005 03:48 (8 years ago) Permalink

THE HOOK! FACT!

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 18 February 2005 03:54 (8 years ago) Permalink

I'm as minimalist as anybody, but it's essentially just talking over an 808 pattern isn't it? NB This is a good thing.

― Speedhump Bungle (noodle vague), Friday, 18 February 2005 03:56 (8 years ago) Permalink

Regardless, the hook is a bassline (duh-duh-dunna-dunnuh)...lifted from "Change" (itself lifted from "Me & Baby Brother" by War).

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 18 February 2005 03:59 (8 years ago) Permalink

Just fyi, I'm not entirely serious about this, but they are incredibly simillar.FACT!

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 18 February 2005 04:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

Hell, if someone would just hand me the LCD Soundsystem album on vinyl right now, I'd happily to go along with any of these theories. Instead I'll have to be bothered to make a trek to the shop tomorrow. Argh.

Say what you might about it otherwise, but Losing My Edge is without doubt one of the more entertaining songs ever recorded. Not that it has any relation to the album at all for me.

― Bimble... (Bimble...), Friday, 18 February 2005 09:04 (8 years ago) Permalink

2 months pass...

Pitchfork: How "Losing My Edge" came about, how "Killing" came about.

James: "Losing My Edge" came from a different place actually. That's them, I remember Vito [Roccoforte, from the Rapture] and Matt mentioning that to me recently, about how "Losing My Edge" came from "Do The Du", but it didn't at all. "Losing My Edge" came from a beat out of a cassette deck with a keyboard built in. That's what the du-du-dunk-ka-dunk thing for the whole thing.

The drums came from "Change" by Killing Joke. Like the turnarounds. It's like, I'm a drummer and the things you play when you warm up, I sit down and play "Little Miss Lover" by Jimi Hendrix, it's one of the beats I play. And my friend sits down and plays a different beat. The "Change" turnarounds are just one of the things I've always loved to play. Sorta like Gang Of Four's "Anthrax". But "Do The Du", I heard it about the time I met the Rapture, and was just freaking out. I love how skinny the guitars are. I think it's pretty amazing. The song was on my little MiniDisc of things I wanted people who were gonna play with me to listen to, before I ever made the band.

http://pitchforkmedia.com/features/weekly/05-05-09-jukebox-james-murphy.shtml

― a banana (alanbanana), Monday, 9 May 2005 16:24 (8 years ago) Permalink

Told'ja.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 9 May 2005 16:56 (8 years ago) Permalink

I mean, this is like the "Come As You Are"/"Eighties" thing at this point.

I'll add that for YEARS, I disliked "Losing My Edge", until I finally heard it on the LCD Soundsystem 2-CD I got earlier this year. As it turns out, when I first heard it, John In The Morning on KEXP had played ONLY THE FIRST HALF! The best part of the song is the build-up and climax in the second-half. What the fuck was up with John that morning?

It would be cool to have James just scream "CHANGE!" every now and then, just to admit it, though. :)

― donut debonair (donut), Monday, 9 May 2005 17:55 (8 years ago) Permalink

1 month passes...

http://banananutrament.blogspot.com/2005/06/lcd-soundboard-losing-my-edge-lyrics.html

WHOA

― firstworldman (firstworldman), Thursday, 9 June 2005 16:10 (7 years ago) Permalink

At least some other poor sap out there in the ether transcribed the lyrics

Heeey! I resent that!

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Friday, 10 June 2005 00:31 (7 years ago) Permalink

I'm losing myself...

― Shame 69, Friday, 10 June 2005 13:26 (7 years ago) Permalink

it seems so unlikely that the author of this record does not post to ilm

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 10 June 2005 13:41 (7 years ago) Permalink

hahaha

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 10 June 2005 16:21 (7 years ago) Permalink

well, this is my first post, amateur(ist).
just found this thread by accident. hilarious. should i bother correcting lyrics? or let it live on it's own likr this?

― giggles mcj, Friday, 17 June 2005 12:57 (7 years ago) Permalink

Yeah James, hook us up. Which Mars are you talking about?

― Keith C (kcraw916), Friday, 17 June 2005 13:23 (7 years ago) Permalink

And most importantly, is it "You don't know what you really want" or "We all know what you really want" or "You all know what you really want" or...

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Friday, 17 June 2005 14:54 (7 years ago) Permalink

at first I thought 'yaz' was a wilfull mispronunciation of 'jazz'. somehow it fits perfectly in my mind (despite the buying of synthesizer and arpeggiator). 'you want to make something rill / you want to make a jazz record'

― W i l l (common_person), Friday, 17 June 2005 15:10 (7 years ago) Permalink

janny hates jazz

― teeny (teeny), Friday, 17 June 2005 15:37 (7 years ago) Permalink

This thread is extremely merry. :-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 17 June 2005 15:41 (7 years ago) Permalink

yanni hates yaz

― W i l l (common_person), Friday, 17 June 2005 16:08 (7 years ago) Permalink

When Annie did "Chewing Gum" at Tribeca Grand the bass player swapped the bassline out for the bassline from this song, it was like a mashup kinda, the best moment of the night by far.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 17 June 2005 17:08 (7 years ago) Permalink

ok--mars is the ny group, from no new york, etc.
and it's "you all know what you really want"

just saying

― gigglesmcj, Monday, 27 June 2005 21:12 (7 years ago) Permalink

the mistery is solved

thank you mr. murphy, if it is indeed you

― manuel (manuel), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 01:09 (7 years ago) Permalink

ah but what are the unintelligbles?

― shine headlights on me (electricsound), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 01:12 (7 years ago) Permalink

xpost

Tell Nancy hubbahubba from me.

― peepee (peepee), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 01:12 (7 years ago) Permalink

If it is indeed Mr. Murphy, can I suggest a live LCD Soundsystem album, or at the very least, an equivalent DVD. When I saw the Toronto performance, my expectations of LCD Soundsystem live were far exceeded.

― BanjoMania (Brilhante), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 01:38 (7 years ago) Permalink

other corrections: "joy division, LAURENT GARNIER, CREATION, sun ra, RAMMEL ZEE..."

"juan atkins, MANUEL GöTTSCHING, david axelrod"

― gigglesmcj, Tuesday, 28 June 2005 21:33 (7 years ago) Permalink

"juan atkins, MANUEL GöTTSCHING, david axelrod"

I can't BELIEVE I didn't catch that.

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Wednesday, 29 June 2005 01:08 (7 years ago) Permalink

5 months pass...

fuck, the video to this is brilliant! i had no idea - just someone slapping james m on the beat, every other beat, for thw whole damn song...

also, anyone seen these?

ihttp://www.dfarecords.com/radiomixes/tracklisting.gif

yowsa...

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Thursday, 15 December 2005 17:04 (7 years ago) Permalink

bollocks...

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Thursday, 15 December 2005 17:05 (7 years ago) Permalink

I saw those in the new-releases mailout for Piccadilly Records in the UK, but by the time I clicked through they were already gone. They're already going for 100 pounds and up on ebay, but at that price fuck it. They're bound to turn up on Soulseek.

― telephone thing, Thursday, 15 December 2005 21:18 (7 years ago) Permalink

5 months pass...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzuFeXYbOOo&search=losing%20my%20edge

Great song, good video.

― Andrew (enneff), Tuesday, 30 May 2006 03:08 (6 years ago) Permalink

staring at james murphy's face gets old really fast

― running in circles (running in circles), Tuesday, 30 May 2006 04:06 (6 years ago) Permalink

GIL SCOTT HERON!

― yer mam! (yer mam!), Tuesday, 30 May 2006 16:54 (6 years ago) Permalink

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