Chess – The Story of Chess lyrics

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 a way
To lessen her distress
They told him he'd be pretty certain
To impress by using model soldiers
On a checkered 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 yet
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

Now we must record
That the game was further changed but
Across the board the Western touch
Upon the game was made

King and queen and rook
And bishop, knight and pawn
All to craft the look
We know today
The modern game was born

And in the end
We see a game that was started by mistake in Hindustan
Become the simplest and most complicated pleasure
Yet devised for just the kind of mind who would appreciate this well researched and fascinating yarn