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 pa*sed
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