Power from the Barrel of a Gun

"Bullet with Butterfly Wings" was a huge hit in 1995. The alternative rock group The Smashing Pumpkins won a 1997 Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance with the song. Now, some 25 years later, the song takes on notable importance for its theme regarding the power of the world over people.

Let's break the song down and consider its application to our present lives.

Introductory verse

"The world is a vampire, sent to drain
Secret destroyers, hold you up to the flames
And what do I get, for my pain?
Betrayed desires, and a piece of the game"

Vampirism is based on a life, force or power extracting the very essence from something else. In fiction, we relate this to vampires consuming (draining) the blood of their victims to fill their insatiable lusts for power. Billy Corgan, the frontman and lyric writer, used the introductory verse to make us aware of the oppression of the masses by world powers.

If you have been paying attention, the worldly vampires are draining us of more of our freedoms, by using a number of tactics, to wit: a carrot and stick approach in order to get us to conform; with new laws and mandates that are actually meant to enslave and deny people their God-given right to live without coercion; and by outright tyranny in the form of threats and discriminatory policies.

Bridge

"Even though I know - I suppose I'll show
All my cool and cold - like old Job"

Here we observe that the bridge makes a pithy reference to the biblical character Job, arguably the name of the first book ever written in the Bible. To bring you up to speed, if you have never read Job, God allowed Job to suffer by the fiendish hands of Satan, and thus Job was subjected to considerable hardships as a test of his faith in God. He lost his wealth, health and children, just to name some losses.

The line "I suppose I'll show," likely refers to giving life another day to try to break free from the hardships of life, though it appears to be an exercise in futility.

Despite this, Corgan states he will remain calm during the oppressive storm with the words "cool and cold." These two words are tricky. Cool in the context of the song would be to remain calm, whereas cold would reference indifference to one's plight or lot in life.

It occurs to me that while many of us remain calm and are allowing God to be in control, still others are indifferent to what is happening around them, which is the power from the end of a gun. It's a metaphor I use to refer to the coercion from governments that has been unleashed on the people and causes people to conform to the world system.

Chorus

"Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage
Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage
Then someone will say what is lost can never be saved
Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage."

Corgan reveals the angst most of us have as a result of the world's oppression. Collectively, we have been caged like rats, with just a little food and water so we can live to suffer more. It's diabolical. The vampires work to deprive us of our humanity. The persistent oppression and coercion to conform to the world leads many people astray, but also to inaction, therefore those who conform are trapped in their worldly ways.

And note the third line: "Then someone will say what is lost can never be saved." Corgan is making a reference to salvation by Jesus. He brings this up in later stanzas. And at the end of the song he sings, "And I still believe that I cannot be saved."

Corgan, like many people, reveals his loss of hope, not only from the present worldly oppression, but also from God's salvation, the latter of which is a free gift and not based on what we can do, but rather by the characteristics of God, namely, love, mercy and grace.

Breaking free

What then shall we do? As the vampires continue with their evil pogrom to enslave us and offer us little if any semblance of hope, will we choose to continue to live like rats in a cage and be subject to the power of the gun? Heaven forbid!

Instead, we need to cast aside our worldly ways. In the New Testament gospel of John, the author of the same name writes: "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them" (1 John 2:15, NIV).

Satan is the ruler of this present world. Therefore, we are not to be bound by the principles and values that the world promotes. Does this mean we cannot enjoy life's pleasures? Not at all. Rather, being “in” the world means we can certainly take pleasure in the things of the world, like the wonderful creation God has given us, such as food, sex within a marriage, work, play and more.

But we are not to live deeply involved in what the world values: pleasures such as drunkenness, illicit sex, the love of money, hedonism, the worship of self, pride, anger and greed, just to name a few.

If we pursue worldly ways, we will remain rats in a cage under the power of the gun. Breaking free means taking action, civil disobedience when necessary, and transforming our lives by the Holy Spirit's indwelling power, and all with an end goal of becoming and living more like Jesus.