C21 – One Night in Bangkok (bonus track)

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 and 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