One Night in Bangkok Songtext
von Murray Head

Bangkok, Oriental City
But the city don′t know what the city is getting
The creme de la creme of the chess world
In a show with everything but Yul Brenner

Time flies, doesn't seem a minute
Since the Tirolean spa had the chess boards 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 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)

Whattaya mean?
You′ve 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 raging
The kind of mating 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 sliding 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