Murray Head
One Night in Bangkok
Murray Head One Night in Bangkok is a song originally sung by Murray Head on the 1984 concept album for the musical Chess. Its music was composed by former ABBA members Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, with lyrics written by Tim Rice.The song is mainly a pop song, though when released it could have been classified as dance music. The choruses of Murray Head One Night in Bangkok were sung by Swedish artist Anders Glenmark. The verses could be described as a spoken rap by Murray Head, a sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek denunciation of the city's moral corruption and comparative glorification of the intellectual purity of chess: e.g., "the queens we use would not excite you."
Murray Head One Night in Bangkok Lyrics
Bangkok, oriental setting
And the city don't know that the city is getting
The creme de la creme of the chess world
In a show with everything but Yul Brynner
Time flies, doesn't seem a minute
Since the Tirolean spa had the chess boys in it
All change, don't you know
That when you play at this level there's no ordinary venue
It's Iceland or the Philippines or Hastings
Or, or this place
One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster
The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free
You'll find a God in every golden cloister
And if you're lucky then the God's a she
I can feel an angel sliding up to me
One town's very like another
When your head's down over your pieces, brother
(It's a drag, it's a bore, it's really such a pity)
(To be looking at the board, not looking at the city)
What d'ya mean
You seen one crowded, polluted, stinking town
(Tea, girls, warm and sweet, sweet)
(Some are set up in the Somerset Maugham suite)
Get Thai'd! You're talking to a tourist
Whose every move's among the purest
I get my kicks above the waistline, sunshine
One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble
Not much between despair and ecstasy
One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble
Can't be too careful with your company
I can feel the devil walking next to me
Siam's gonna be the witness
To the ultimate test of cerebral fitness
This grips me more than would
A muddy old river or reclining Buddha
Thank God I'm only watching the game, controlling it
I don't see you guys rating
The kind of mate I'm contemplating
I'd let you watch, I would invite you
But the queens we use would not excite you
So you better go back to your bars, your temples
Your massage parlors
One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster
The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free
You'll find a God in every golden cloister
A little flesh, a little history
I can feel an angel sliding up to me
One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble
Not much between despair and ecstasy
One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble
Can't be too careful with your company
I can feel the devil walking next to me
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