One Night in Bangkok lyrics

Bangkok, Oriental Setting

But the city don't know what the city is getting

The crème de la crème 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 changed, 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 their 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 slidin' 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

Whattaya mean?!

You've seen one crowded, polluted, stinking town

Tea girls, warm and sweet (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 the 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

But 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 their pearls ain't free

You'll find a god in every golden cloister

A little flesh, a little history

I can feel an angel slidin' up to me

One night in Bangkok makes the 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

• Artist:Murray Head
• Album:Chess OST 1984