"Fast car" is kind of a continuation of Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run." It has all the clawing your way to a better life, but in this case the protagonist never makes it with her love; in fact she is dragged back down by him.
There is still an amazing amount of hope and will in the lyrics; and the lyrics themselve rank and easy five. If only music was stronger it would be one of those great radio songs that you hear once a week 20 years after it was released. The imagery is almost tear-jerking ("City lights lay out before us", "Speeds so fast felt like I was drunk"), and the idea of starting from nothing and just driving and working and denigrating yourself for a chance at being just above poverty, then losing in the end is just painful and inspiring at the same time.
Mark and Danny in the Greek Hotel
Bold as badgers on a one-take Mission
Got their equipment from a dwarf outside
On the trail of any suspect wisdom
Pond-Life beneath a Southern sky
(They make their move then they head off to the border)
They don't care as long as you can pay -
Whatever - whatever they say
We're on the road and we're gunning for the Buddha
We know his name and he mustn't get away
We're on the road and we're gunning for the Buddha
It would take one shot - to blow him away...
Now's the time to have some big ideas
Now's the time to make some firm decisions
We saw the Buddha in a bar down south
Talking politics and nuclear fission
We see him and he's all washed up -
Moving on into the body of a beetle
Getting ready for a long long crawl
He ain't nothing - he ain't nothing at all...
We're on the road and we're gunning for the Buddha
We know his name and he mustn't get away
We're on the road and we're gunning for the Buddha
It would take one shot - to blow him away...
Death and Money make their point once more
In the shape of Philosophical assassins
Mark and Danny take the bus uptown
Deadly angels for reality and passion
Have the courage of the here and now
Don't take nothing from these ½-baked buddhas
When you think you got it paid in full
You got nothing - you got nothing at all...
We're on the road and we're gunning for the Buddha
We know his name and he mustn't get away
We're on the road and we're gunning for the Buddha
It would take one shot...
Oh... we're gunning for the Buddha
We know his name and he mustn't get away
We're on the road and we're gunning for the Buddha
Saying something, saying something unsafe
We're on the road
Oh... we're gunning for the Buddha
(Yeah, Yeah)
We're on the road
You know we're gunning for the Buddha
You see him blow right there
We're on the road
We're gunning, we're gunning,
We're gunning on the road
We're gunning, we're gunning
We're gunning for the Buddha
Gunning for the Buddha
Gunning for the Buddha
Gunning for the Buddha
Bold as badgers on a one-take Mission
Got their equipment from a dwarf outside
On the trail of any suspect wisdom
Pond-Life beneath a Southern sky
(They make their move then they head off to the border)
They don't care as long as you can pay -
Whatever - whatever they say
We're on the road and we're gunning for the Buddha
We know his name and he mustn't get away
We're on the road and we're gunning for the Buddha
It would take one shot - to blow him away...
Now's the time to have some big ideas
Now's the time to make some firm decisions
We saw the Buddha in a bar down south
Talking politics and nuclear fission
We see him and he's all washed up -
Moving on into the body of a beetle
Getting ready for a long long crawl
He ain't nothing - he ain't nothing at all...
We're on the road and we're gunning for the Buddha
We know his name and he mustn't get away
We're on the road and we're gunning for the Buddha
It would take one shot - to blow him away...
Death and Money make their point once more
In the shape of Philosophical assassins
Mark and Danny take the bus uptown
Deadly angels for reality and passion
Have the courage of the here and now
Don't take nothing from these ½-baked buddhas
When you think you got it paid in full
You got nothing - you got nothing at all...
We're on the road and we're gunning for the Buddha
We know his name and he mustn't get away
We're on the road and we're gunning for the Buddha
It would take one shot...
Oh... we're gunning for the Buddha
We know his name and he mustn't get away
We're on the road and we're gunning for the Buddha
Saying something, saying something unsafe
We're on the road
Oh... we're gunning for the Buddha
(Yeah, Yeah)
We're on the road
You know we're gunning for the Buddha
You see him blow right there
We're on the road
We're gunning, we're gunning,
We're gunning on the road
We're gunning, we're gunning
We're gunning for the Buddha
Gunning for the Buddha
Gunning for the Buddha
Gunning for the Buddha
Lyrics submitted by Major Valor
Gunning for the Buddha Lyrics as written by David Geoffrey Allen Barry Andrews
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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"if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." -- Zen Master Linji, (the founder of the Rinzai sect)
the quote above is usually interpreted to mean that if you think you've met someone who fits your notion of who the Buddha is, it's actually not Buddha, and the best thing to do is to "kill" your notion of Buddha by ridding it from your mind.
The song "Gunnin' for the Buddha" is about a couple of friends who enjoy discussing ancient Eastern philosophy while traveling through Greece (or through Europe, including Greece) together. these characters Mark and Danny are "gunning for the Buddha" in that they are pondering the teachings of the Zen Master Linji, questioning their personal conceptions of the Buddha, and/or possibly playing a game at trying to spot (read: hunting for) fake (or "half-baked") Buddhas. While agreeing to do so, they joke about "gunning" (substituted in place of "killing") for the Buddha during their travels.
They encounter one such would-be Buddha in a bar "down south" from their Greek hotel. he is disussing politics and nuclear fission in a pompous, self-important, probably inebriated ("all washed up") enough to result in a wicked hangover ("Moving on into the body of a beetle/ Getting ready for a long long crawl") possibly they consider getting into a philosophical discussion with the drunken blowhard in their attempt to expose him as a phony, thus "killing" the fake Buddha.
they take a bus uptown where they find more fake Buddhas, which they expose as fake by way of arguments relating to "Death and Money" (in discussing politics & economics) they describe themselves as "philosophical assassins" and as "deadly angels for reality and passion" in warning us not to be persuaded by "half-baked Buddhas" lest we be left with "nothing".