bulletproof... i wish i was
By Tom Burns

I think this song is deceptive because at first look the lyrics seem to be Thom calling for someone to abuse him. However, the music is so calm and ethereal it doesn't make sense for the song to be a typical grunge-y plea for abuse. I think this song is about loving someone with a destructive nature and loving them so much that it doesn't matter if they cause you physical or emotional pain because it doesn't make you love them less. In fact, Thom is saying he'll be a pincushion for money, he doesn't care. He just wishes he was bulletproof so that it wouldn't hurt so much.

By stephenangelo@email.msn.com

I think this song is about how a girl keeps hurting thom, and he is saying that he wishes he was bulletproof so that the girl wont hurt him
By bilbo999@gateway.net

I think this song is about wanting to be apathetic, but no being able to. Wishing that what people said and did would no longer hurt them. The author wnats to build walls around themselves to shield them from the pain, but in the end they just hurt the people around them.
By Paul Waite

I would submit that this song is rather about an illness that is something of a mystery to science. It is tearing up the insides of whoever it is afflicting. They try everything, including acupuncture. Science has caused the disease, and science is experimenting trying to discover how to cure it. He could burst a million bubbles, those bubbles being our security of having health.

I am drunkely rambling, but this is what that song has meant to me. It's beautifully dreamy, which is how I'd think some medical treatment was, when you're drugged up to your eyeballs and no longer care. Of course, here in my bullet proof bubble, I wouldn't know.
By Jill

seems like the author is being hurt by some one and the author is just taking it and wants to be bullet proof, because it wouldn't hurt as much. it wouldn't hurt physically (obviously). he also wouldn't get feeling so guilty on his own part, because these things are going on, and he's not doing anything about it. if he was bullet proof, he wouldn't have to deal with it, and could try to ignore the fact someone(thing) is hurting him.
By Dave

I think that he's comparing being heartbroken to being shot, and by stating that he wishes to be bulletproof he means that he does not wan't to be heartbroken.
By Joanna

i think this song was influenced by Thomas Hardy. "wax me, mould me, heat the pins and stab them in" is like a passage from "the return of the native" where the old ladies make wax moulds of people and heat them in the fireplace and stab pins in them as a kind of english voodoo doll. "every day, every hour" is a line from "jude the obscure."
By buccasciotta

A lot of fuss is made about this song being about a single relationship that may be destructive or dysfunctional or some such thing, but to me it goes way beyond that, though it very much has to do with relationships. It feels like loneliness and emptiness and serenity all in one, and it's really very pain- ful. We strive on and make ourselves vulnerable to people who will just turn out to hurt us in the end, and when they do hurt us (as inevitably they will) we feel beaten and impotent and just wish that nothing would touch us, so we set up walls to keep the nasties out. We all want to be bulletproof everyday everyhour, but somehow people still come into our lives that break down our walls and make us trust again.
By Paul

A beautiful song. Feeling worthless? listen to this, it can make you cry because it's so harmonic. It's about distance, exhaustion and the overwhelming feeling of vunerability, the title says it all; 'Bulletproof...I wish I was'. It's a statement, oh and listen to that final chord, the best moment in the entire 'The Bends' album, listen to how it fades away, but with dignity.