The Story of Chess

Benny Andersson, Tim Rice, and Bjorn Ulvaeus
THE RUSSIAN:
 Knowing I want you
 Knowing I love you
 I can't explain why I remain
 Careless about you
 FLORENCE:
 I've been a fool to allow
 Dreams to become great expectations
 THE RUSSIAN:
 How can I love you so much yet make no move?
 BOTH:
 I pray the days and nights
 In their endless weary procession
 Soon overwhelm my sad obsession
 You and I
 We've seen it all
 Chasing our hearts' desire
 But we go on pretending
 Stories like ours
 Have happy endings
 THE RUSSIAN:
 You could not give me
 More than you gave me
 Why should there be something in me
 Still discontented?
 FLORENCE:
 I won't look back anymore
 And if I do -- just for a moment
 THE RUSSIAN:
 I'll soon be happy to say I knew her when
 BOTH:
 But if you hear today
 I'm no longer quite so devoted
 To this affair, I've been misquoted
 You and I
 We've seen it all
 Chasing our hearts' desire
 But we go on pretending
 Stories like ours
 Have happy endings
 CHOIR:
 Each game of chess means there's one less
 Variation left to be played
 Each day got through means one or two
 Less mistakes remain to be made
 Not much is known
 Of early days of chess beyond a fairly vague report
 That fifteen hundred years ago two princes fought,
 Though brothers, for a Hindu throne
 Their mother cried
 For no one really likes their offspring fighting to the death
 She begged them stop the slaughter with her every breath
 But sure enough one brother died
 Sad beyond belief
 She told her winning son
 You have caused such grief
 I can't forgive
 This evil thing you've done
 He tried to explain
 How things had really been
 But he tried in vain
 No words of his
 Could mollify the queen
 And so he asked
 The wisest men he knew
 The way to lessen her distress
 They told him he'd be pretty certain to impress
 By using model soldiers on
 A chequered board to show it was his brother's fault
 They thus invented chess
 Chess displayed no inertia
 Soon spread to Persia
 Then west
 Next the Arabs refined it
 Thus redesigned, it
 Progressed
 Still further west
 And when Constantinople fell in 1453
 One would have noticed every other refugee
 Included in his bags a set
 Once in the hands
 And in the minds of leading figures of the Renaissance
 The spirit and the speed of chess made swift advance
 Through all of Europe's vital lands
 Where we must record
 The game was further changed
 Right across the board
 The western touch
 Upon the pieces ranged
 King and queen and rook
 And bishop, knight and pawn
 All took on the look
 We know today
 The modern game was born
 And in the end
 We see a game that started by mistake in Hindustan
 And boosted in the main by what is now Iran
 Become the simplest and most complicated
 Pleasure yet devised
 For just the kind of mind
 Who would appreciate this well-researched and fascinating yarn
 FLORENCE:
 This is an all too familiar scene
 THE RUSSIAN:
 Hopeless reflections on what might have been
 BOTH:
 From all sides the incessant and burning question:
 FLORENCE:
 Bearing in mind your predicament now --
 THE RUSSIAN:
 -- what you did then --
 BOTH:
 -- we're just dying to know would you do it all again?
 CHOIR:
 Each day we get through means one less mistake there for the making
 BOTH:
 But they know full well
 It's not hard to tell
 Though my heart is breaking
 I'd give the world for that moment with you
 When we thought we knew
 That our love would last
 But the moment passed
 With no warning, far too fast
 You and I
 We've seen it all
 Chasing our hearts' desire
 But we go on pretending
 Stories like ours
 Have happy endings