Various

Various - You And I - The Story Of Chess lyrics

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

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