Hi to all..Getting away with it all messed up is one of my favorite songs, but the problem for me is that I can't find the meaning of the lyrics. My english is not the best either.So I would ne grateful to anyone who would explain to me what is the story about.Thanks guys..

its about living on an emotional knife edge but surviving.

A very clever and beautiful song
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Are you aching for the blade?
That's OK
We're insured

Are you aching for the grave?
That's OK
We're insured


We're getting away with it, all messed up
Getting away with it, all messed up
That's the living

Daniel's saving grace
She's out in deep water
Hope he's a good swimmer


Daniel plays his ace
Deep inside his temple
He knows how to surf her

Getting away with it, all messed up
Getting away with it, all messed up
That's the living

Getting away with it, all messed up
Getting away with it, all messed up
That's the living

Daniel drinks his weight
Drinks like Richard Burton
Dances like John Travolta
Now

Daniel's saving grace
He was all for drowning
Now they live like dolphins

We're getting away with it, all messed up
Getting away with it, all messed up
That's the living

We're getting away with it, all messed up
We're getting away with it, all messed up
That's the living

We're getting away with it, all messed up
We're getting away with it, all messsed up
That's the living

Are we getting away with it?
All messed up
Getting away with it, all messed up
That's the living

Getting away with it
We're getting away with it
That's the living
That's the living

I think it's about someone in, or the band partying way to much. Tim's telling them to stop before they kill themselves. Are you aching for the blade? That's OK
We're insured
This is only what I think it's about so forgive me if I'm totally wrong...I don't think Tim ever said what the song was about .Daniel is also a Biblical name.. Daniel's saving grace, He was all for drowning Now they live like dolphins.. It's to late to save them because they didn't listen..

Maybe someone else knows?

for me, its about having faith and believing that you can turn your life around...for the better.

i think the video is accurate in what i percieve the song to be about.

or like.... getting away with it. all messed up.

To me it's a song about commitment and life.

We all have the power to self destruct but sometimes you have to commit yourself 100% to the maelstrom and it just works out (rough with the smooth and all that), about rolling with the punches and not sucombing to the desire to give up/take an easy(self apologising) route out.

It's about being pulled up by the bootstraps by someone or something you've made a commitment to, and the power to have or receive that influence.

It's a theme in several James songs

What I find difficult to understand are the following lyrics...
<<are you aching for blade,that;s ok.we're insured>>
<<he knows how to surf her>>
<<daniel drinks his weight>>
<<he was all but drowning>>
<<now they live like dolphins>>


Hope someone can gine me a clue..

Negligent cosmetic surgeons



He's a pornstar



and a piss-artist



Fell in the canal whilst staggering home from the Wagon & Horses



Eat a lot of fish, fuck about in the ocean

<<are you aching for blade,that;s ok.we're insured>>

Are you looking for a way out, cause you can find an excuse

<<he knows how to surf her>>

depends if you hear "surf her" or "suffer" or whether its a play on both

<<daniel drinks his weight>>

Listen to "I wanna go home" it explains it I think. I've always believed this is a partner song to this, a theme first hit upon in Gregory's Town

<<he was all but drowning>>
<<now they live like dolphins>>

They are in it together for the long run, both immersed themselves in the tumult, and have learned to play with it and on occassion rise above it


but what do I now it's just how I reconcilled it for myself your better reading into it what you will, oh and dancing till it's so bright the lights go out!

New member here, first post!

I've been tormented by the same question. While not the answer, here's some comments by Tim and Saul from a 2001 interview on the eve of the release of "Pleased to Meet You" that might shed some light:

"The next chapter of the James story is about to unfold with the release of their new album Pleased To Meet You and the single 'Getting Away With It'. Dotmusic met the band's Saul and Tim to hear all about their past, present and future.

"Getting Away With It

"Saul: "It is getting away with it. When you listen all the instruments are out of tune and time with each other and I'd like to say that was deliberate but it wasn't. That song came out of one of the earliest recording sessions, a session to see what we had. We then worked on that song quite a lot, spent a lot of man-hours on it but we couldn't better the first time we played it."

"Tim: "We never saw it as a single. We're not very good at judging and this one came back with people saying they couldn't get it out of their head which is the definition of a virus as much as a single. We're very ramshackle. Decisions get made in very chaotic ways just as songs get written in that way. We did masses of work on it and came back to the original. Lyrically it reflects the mess too. There's a story in there of a guy called Daniel saving a woman called Grace from drowning but he doesn't realise that in saving her he's really saving himself."

The entire interview can be read at this link:
http://www.moredarkthanshark.org/eno_int_dot-jun01.html

Hope this helps!

Welcome and thanks for the link! I've never seen this one before..

Thanks back, and thanks for the thanks (I knew there had to be a lot of nice people here :-)

My recent rediscovery of James and the music, I believe, has been a true eye-opener. I thought "Laid" was the only song of the band's I knew, but have since realized I've long been a fan of a few of their works. The posts from "Getting Away With It ... Live:" I found on YouTube allowed me to understand better how tight they are as a band and the power of their songs.

I'm pissed, of course, that I didn't get to hear so much of their artistry because American music factories would rather recycle septic tanks of sound than release anything that makes people think, or care, or love, or hope, or protest idiocy (heard "Hey Ma" the other day; no one has better articulated my feelings on Sept. 11, 2001, or the resulting aftermath, than Tim and Saul and Larry and Andy and everyone else.)

Funny. Only been here a day and I already feel more at home than I have in years. Hope to stay a lot longer. Now, if I can ever convince them to come to Dallas ...

Cheers!

Welcome Cityed

That's quite an entrance with that link, thanks for that, this song and the album has always intrigued me. Loving all the thoughts on GAW, I started a post about the PTMY album a while ago if you're interested, some people had some really interesting angles and soul on it for me.

Coming from another angle it made me giggle a little when they confess they haven't tuned up their guitars and stuff properly in making the song and that they would love to say they did it on purpose but didn't. For me, personally the band are cool in a brilliantly uncool way and don't suffer from the crippling hipness that certain English bands among others have (just my personal myopic view there!)

Tim makes reference to this Getting away with it element to the band at times like the DVD 'farewell' gig in 2001 about the band getting away with it all but doing pretty good. I love the whole concept in life of making a small or monumental fuck up which i have certainly done and will probably keep doing, but then where it might take you in the end. I now have a baby daughter as a result of that, Isla Grace born on monday so i'm in a pretty floaty, special place right now! Are you familiar with "Not so strong". Someone else on this forum helped to make me aware of that one (thank you Anet or a gun), something in that song for me and "building a charge" is a quiet beauty in my book too that you may or may not like. I won't go on and on as i can do but just thought i'd chuck a couple of ideas out there as you said you're pretty new to the band. What are your favourite albums -take care-- j

Feeling a bit f***ed up tonight, tired of work and everything else, having an ale, listening to music and thought I'd google the meaning of the lyrics to James' Getting away with it all messed up - been listening to it for a few years, has some pertinent lyrics. Can't find what it really means but thanks Sigmund Freud...good to see someone out there has a sense of humour...you made me laugh.

Cheers,

Numbnut

The lyrics are very apothegmatic, and ceaselessly laced with a forthright rhetorical homologue.
The start of the first to verses are a precise questioning metaphor, yet the following "That's ok, we're insured.", while in itself a concise metaphor - changes the verses into an emotionally absorbing mixed-metaphor. Quite Genius!.
The lyrics "Drink like Richard Burton, Dance like John Travolta." are in fact an hostile simile, used to exaggerate an emotional state of self-glorification & the collaborative effects of alcohol & music.
The use of the biblical words/names Danial & particularly Grace, do arouse ambiguous lyrical parallels!. Although, i would suggest the use of the word Grace is strongly capitalized towards eurythmical expression.
"Now they live like Dolphins." Is an emotive hyperbole used to inspirit a moment of absolute communion and tranquillity.

The song is essentially about loneliness, dependency and death. How death constantly looms above us, but seems to loom closer to our field of sight or perception when we are detained by periods of loneliness or dependency.

Possibly describes a process of tuning into elements of life that we use to keep the inevitable fickle finger of fate and the bleak certainty of death at bay...... momentarily!.
At the very least blocking it's approach from our senses.

More importantly - what do the lyrics mean to you? The best thing about lyrics is how they speak to us all in different ways. That's what makes it art and not a science.

For me it's that 3 steps forward 2 back thing that happens in life and living in the hope that one day your head will stay out of the water - permenantly!

I like that he decides against drowning to live a more perceptive life like a dolphin

Or they've died and come back as dolphins!!!!!

Though he sings now they live 'like' dolphins. maybe grace was like a dolphin out in deep water and thought he was saving her. ' Deep inside his temple he knows how to surf her'. so did grace save him?