--== Interpretation of Bullet with Butterfly Wings ==--
by //rev8:11 (wormwood@progsoc.uts.edu.au)

At 12:57 PM 9/25/96 -0500, you (Bob) wrote:
>Hey everybody. My interp of BWBW is that Billy is saying that he hates showing
>all of his emotion like a job, he hates being put into a classification.

no, bwbw is a pretty pessimistic song, it's theme focuses on suffering, and
whether there is any justice in life.
now relate this to the book of job, yeah, there's a *big* similarity.  so i
think here, job refer to job himself, the one who, despite of his innocent
suffering, he still maintain his cool.  thus:  "i'll show all my cool
.like old job".
unlike the book of job, the song takes on a different path, and instead of
maintaining that the world is just (in the epilogue we're given this), in
bwbw, billy is saying that the world is not just.
i think billy is influenced by what wiesel once said, that even with the
reward job got for his pain and suffering, job did not deserved to go thru
what he did -- it wasn't worth it.  thus there is no just at all:  "what do
i get for my pain?".
basically, without going too deep into this song like i did with 33, bwbw is
about suffering of the innocent.  billy is saying that there is no justice
in it -- he blames the world/life (the world's a vampire).  billy is looking
for an answer but there isn't any.  he knows he's suppose to remain cool
like old job but no one is answering his desperate calls.  and of course, he
believes no one will answer his call.
and i dont see any reason why we should quickly link "saved" to that of the
christian "saved" (unlike the obviousness of 33).  "i still believe that i
cannot be saved" could simply mean that he thinks no one can help him;  no
one can get him out of the shit he's in at moment.  of course, that `no one'
could mean jesus, but it could be anybody.
that's my brief opinion of the song anyway...

cheers
-tris