Game of Pawns Lyrics

We aimed well our blows, took it hard on the nose

The match was close, but we're both for the gallows

Fight the good fight until we're spent, all for the sake of the unknown gent

Let me pretend to reinvent the painful tale of our descent

I stand on white, nothing to prove

But if all you leave me is black then I'll make that move

Kings, they all hide, jump from the shadows like knights

And I'm just trying to live one square at a time

The way the race is run, the way the hand is played

Those who profit are those by whom the game was made

That impi heard you make compelling protest

Then put you on the ground with a club to the chest

The match of me against you, it ain't nothing very new

They played it in old Rome and in Timbuktu

In the empire of China, you wracked your brain for a Song

For the Pharaoh I raced but couldn't last that long

I stand on white, nothing to prove

But if all you leave me is black then I'll make that move

Kings, they all hide, jump from the shadows like knights

And I'm just trying to live one square at a time

Once it was for sport and a little drop of blood

A test of mettle, to stand the raging flood

The kings donned splendid suits and placed their bets

A pile of shiny coins for our grim duet

But the crowds no longer cheer for us

The masters don't laugh too loud in fear of us

Once we lived for sport, now we sport to live

The contest is only a heartless sieve

The lure still sparkles and shines like gold

You can't see the mechanical hand that controls

Your hopes to achieve, all you dream to create

They've all been cashed in for pieces of eight

I stand on white, nothing to prove

But if all you leave me is black then I'll make that move

Kings, they all hide, jump from the shadows like knights

And I'm just trying to live one square at a time