I recently met up with some friends and we got talking about the strangest song of the 1980s.

There were so many that came up in conversation including The Mobiles ‘Dancing In Berlin’, TransX ‘Living On Video’ and Laurie Anderson’s ‘O Superman’.

But for me, there’s only one option…  it’s got to be Shriekback’s ‘Gunning For The Buddha’.

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard it, but it’s set to a gentle melodic, cocktail bar rumba, and it tells the story of Mark and Danny, philosophical assassins on the trail of a half baked phony Buddha! They are ‘pond life beneath southern skies’ who ‘get their equipment from a dwarf outside’.

Then when they corner their target in a bar down south, he finishes talking about politics and nuclear fission and moves on to the body of a beatle and gets ready for long long crawl.

We get a bit more about Mark and Danny being deadly angels for reality and passion, and possibly mercenary in the final verse but not whose sponsoring their crusade.

That’s a literal interpretation of the lyrics, perhaps you’d like to check the words and post your idea of what it all  means!

For example do they actually try and kill bogus Buddhas or merely follow them around the world assassinating their arguments

For me Gunning for the Buddha is the weirdest and most fascinating song of the 1980s.

Watch it for yourself right here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1yiQE_aOjM

So everything from the 80s can come back, right? Wrong. Despite music, gadgets, stage shows fashion and movies from the era all doing well in our time, it seems one retro project is heading for the rocks.

Back in 84, Kevin Bacon’s career erupted into life with the dance movie ‘Footloose’. The re-make was scheduled for a Summer release this year with Zac Efron in the dancing shoes. Before filming wrapped, Zac jumped ship as did the original Director and Paramount has taken the finished product off its release schedule.

If you’re desperate to see Footloose ReBooted (not the official title!) they might sneak it out in either August or perhaps even January 2011. Forget Thanksgiving or Christmas, in movieland, these are the two months are usually when turkeys are consumed.