Murray Head Songs - One Night In Bangkok Lyrics

Murray Head - One Night In Bangkok

Murray Head - One Night In Bangkok Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Chess - Original Movie Soundtrack
Released: 1984

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

Whaddya mean? Ya seen one crowded, polluted, stinking town

Tea, girls, warm, 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

And 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
parlours

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

Writer/s: TIM RICE, BENNY GORAN BROR ANDERSSON, BJOERN K. ULVAEUS
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

One Night In Bangkok

The song tells of the meeting of two great chess players, one Soviet and one American, in Bangkok, which is the capital of Thailand. Chess is a musical production that uses a US-USSR chess rivalry as a metaphor for the Cold War, but this song just contains double-entendres about the game of Chess compared to the Bangkok nightlife. The example often used is "I would invite you, but the queens we use would not excite you."

Chess was a musical that premiered in London's West End. This song was written for the 1984 concept album, which was recorded well ahead of the production. The album was very successful considering it was for a musical. The album charted in the Top 10 in the UK, #47 in the US, and #1 in Sweden. Another song from the album, "I Know Him So Well," held the #1 spot in the UK for four weeks in February 1985, being deposed by "You Spin Me Right Round" by Dead or Alive. The Broadway production of Chess was heavily altered and unsuccessful.

Along with the rest of the songs from Chess, the music was written by Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson of ABBA, and Tim Rice wrote the lyrics. Rice has written for many film and theatrical productions, including the song "Can You Feel The Love Tonight" from The Lion King.

A little over 2 minutes into this song, there is a flute solo using a difficult flutter tongue technique similar to that used on many Jethro Tull songs. It was played by a Swedish musician named Bjorn Jason Lindh.

Murray Head is an actor who has been in several movies and stage productions. He is barely out of the one-hit-wonder category because of his 1971 version of "Superstar" from the Jesus Christ Superstar production where he played Judas. It his #14 in the US in 1971.

Before Murray went to Mill Hill he had been at Hampton Grammar School with Paul Samwell-Smith (ex-Yardbirds & Cat Stevens' producer) In 1975 Paul Samwell Smith made a record of Murray's songs for Islands Records. The album Say It Ain't So became a cult album in France. His father was Seafield Head, a documentary maker, and is Mother was Helen Shingler, an actress who played Mrs. Maigret alongside Rupert Davies as Maigret in the 60's TV series of the same name. His younger brother is Anthony 'Little Britain' Head.

A dance remix by the German production team Vinylshakerz was released in 2005.

Mike Tyson performs this in the 2011 movie The Hangover 2, which of course takes place mostly in Bangkok. Tyson appears as a surprise wedding guest and takes the stage near the end of the movie.