Songoftheday 2/19/14 - Oriental setting and the city don't know what the city is getting, the creme de la creme of the chess world in a show with everything but Yul Brynner...

Murray Head - "One Night In Bangkok"
from the album Chess (Original Cast Album) (1985)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #3 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13

Today's Song of the Day is from the musical about board and love games Chess, which was conceived by the men of Swedish sugar-pop giants Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson along with Broadway star lyricist Tim Rice. After their group broke up in 1983, Benny and Bjorn were able to write the music for the play about Cold War hostility and intrigue told through the eyes of tournament chess players and their paramours. Playing the role of "The American" Freddie Trumper in the play was stage veteran Murray Head, who got his big break in the role of Judas Iscariot in Jesus Christ Superstar, which Rice also wrote the lyrics for. Murray's version of the showstopper "Superstar" made it to #14 on the American pop chart in 1971, two years after its original release.

Murray would appear in movies and on record throughout the rest of the decade, but it wasn't until 1983 that his fortunes exploded with the starring role in Chess. In "One Night In Bangkok", which takes place during the championship city, Murray "raps" snarky lyrics about the Asian city while background vocals by Swedish singer Anders Glenmark bring it more nuanced with the "One night in Bangkok makes the hard man humble" line. It was released as a single in both England and the States, even though the musical wasn't on Broadway as yet..

"One Night In Bangkok" became a top ten hit for Murray in May of 1985, while also scaling to #5 on the dance club play chart, and even making an appearance on the R&B chart in Billboard at #89. In England, where the show was playing at West End, the single actually didn't do as well, stopping at #12. It did better across Europe, topping the singles chart in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, and top ten in France, Canada, and Sweden. It would be Murray's last appearance in the American pop charts, though last year his song "Say It Ain't So, Joe" became a left-field top-20 hit in France.

As for Chess, the musical only lasted a couple of months on Broadway in a redone show. 

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Here's another performance of the song from a British TV production of Chess with added Benny (swoon) and Bjorn!

The same year as Head's hit version, Canadian singer Robey also had a minor pop hit in the US with her take on the song, reaching #77 on the pop chart and top-5 on the dance club play chart in a remix by Shep Pettibone...

Twenty years after the original, the A-Teens, a vocal group that usually covered ABBA, took on the song for their  New Arrival album...

In 2005, the German dance group Vinylshakerz had a top ten hit in Belgium and Finland and top 40 in their home country with a club cover of the song...

..and here's Murray on a French variety show in 2011...

Finally, at the end of The Hangover 2, Mike Tyson came back to "sing" it in 2011..

Up tomorrow: a song for the ones in detention.