Murray Head 1984

"One Night In Bangkok"

Bangkok!
Oriental setting
And the city don't know what the city is getting
The créme de la créme of the chess world in a
Show with everything but Yul Brynner

Time flies doesn't seem a minute
Since the Tyrolean spa has 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 this place

One night in Bankok 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 is very like another
When you head's down over your pieces brother

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 Bankok makes a hard man humble
Not much between despair and ecstasy
One night in Bankok an the tough guys tumble
Can't be to careful with your company
I can feel the devil walking next to me

Siam's gotta 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'd better go back to your bars
your temples
your massage parlours

One night in Bankok and the worlds'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 Bankok makes a hard man humble
Not much between despair and ecstasy
One night in Bankok an the tough guys tumble
Can't be to careful with your company
I can feel a devil walking next to me