Album: Chess: New York Soundtrack

The Story of Chess

[GREGOR]
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 would satisfy 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.