Friday Night Videos

Apologies for no "Friday Night Videos" last week, but YouTube was on the blink. But that may be fortuitous as far as timing goes. In light of this week's coup in Thailand, the video I'd planned to feature, One Night in Bangkok, seems eerily prescient.



I had the Chess album on tape in high school, and although none of the other songs were as striking as "Bangkok," I still played the heck out of it and found it somewhat addictive. There's one particular oddity regarding this song, though. Some months prior to Murray Head's "Bangkok" video and single coming out, I saw a video on Friday Night Videos (or perhaps the WTBS equivalent program) for the song "One Night in Bangkok." Only it wasn't by Murray Head. It was sung by a chorus of women (Bananarama comes to mind for some reason, but this was most definitely not them) who danced around quite a bit, and I recall red was the predominant color in the video. The arrangement and instrumentation of the song was utterly different from the Head version, and I distinctly remember being baffled by the video when I saw it, as opposed to the Head video, which I thought was the coolest thing ever. I never saw that proto-Bangkok again, and have never met anyone else who's ever seen it. Was it a release that flopped, prompting Tim Rice and the others behind Chess to pull the song and rework it? I dunno--this is one instance where Google and Wikipedia are failing me. Does anyone out there know?

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Gino Vanelli

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