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 passed

 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