WAS's Awesome New Wave Song Of The Week #12: Murray Head - One Night In Bangkok

The Cold War … ABBA … Tim Rice musicals… US & Soviet chess-masters competing in exotic locales … nothing screams “The 1980s” like all of these things.  But did you know that they were all successfully combined into a London West End musical called “Chess” ? Developed by Tim Rice and the two dudes Benny & Bjorn of ABBA, and released as a concept album in 1984, “Chess" went on to open as a show in London in 1986 and run for three years.  Both the album and the play were critically and commercially acclaimed and the album charted on both sides of the Atlantic, and even hit #1 in (where else?) ABBA’s homeland of Sweden.

“One Night in Bangkok” is the new wave gem of the project.  The song is sung by Murray Head, an English actor-singer who was chosen to play the American chess-master for “Chess” by Tim Rice because he had previously sung the part of Judas Iscariot in Rice’s 1970s longhair rock-opera spectacle “Jesus Christ Superstar”.  His tune “Superstar” was the most famous song of that production and was released as the first single of the show in 1969.  While ”Superstar” involved the affectation of a soul-style hippie boogie complete with backing gospel choir, “Bangkok” was a very different song. Murray Head absolutely nails it, singing with the precise sense of aloof detachment required, exactly what you would expect a cerebral chess master touring a city of sin to sound like.  Many killer double-entendres in the lyrics allude to some of Bangkok’s more infamous lures and the chorus has a backing choir of sorts again, and a killer hook too.  

And finally - the best news of all - 2018 will see the “Chess” musical revived both in London and on Broadway! 

-WAS