Benny Andersson, Tim Rice, and Bjorn Ulvaeus
FLORENCE:
You want to lose your only friend?
Well, keep it up, you're doing fine
Why this humiliation?
Why treat me like a fool?
I've taken shit for seven years
And I won't take it anymore
THE AMERICAN:
I'm only teasing Soviets
With gentle bonhomie
And you've a better reason to be anti-them than me.
FLORENCE:
There's a time and there's a place.
THE AMERICAN:
Is this the girl who always said
She wants to know the truth?
FLORENCE:
There's a time and there's a place...
CHORUS (repeating):
1956 -- Budapest is rising
1956 -- Budapest is fighting
1956 -- Budapest is falling
1956 -- Budapest is dying
THE AMERICAN:
I'd have thought you'd support
Any attack on these people
On the people who ran
Mindlessly over your childhood
Don't let them fool you for
Thirty years on they're the same
They see chess as a war
Playing with pawns just like Poland
If you walk out on me
They will have won their first battle
Wouldn't your father
Have begged you to stay in the game?
FLORENCE:
He would -- but he didn't know you
He'd loathe your behaviour and so do I --
Why'd you have to do this to me?
What's going on around me
Is barely making sense
I need some explanations fast
I see my present partner
In the imperfect tense
And I don't see how we can last
I feel I need a change of cast
Maybe I'm on nobody's side
And when he gives me reasons
To justify each move
They're getting harder to believe
I know this can't continue
I've still a lot to prove
There must be more I could achieve
But I don't have the nerve to leave
Everybody's playing the game
But nobody's rules are the same
Nobody's on nobody's side
Better learn to go it alone
Recognize you're out on your own
Nobody's on nobody's side
The one I should not think of
Keeps rolling through my mind
And I don't want to let that go
No lovers ever faithful
No contract truly signed
There's nothing certain left to know
And how the cracks begin to show!
Never make a promise or plan
Take a little love where you can
Nobody's on nobody's side
Never stay too long in your bed
Never lose your heart, use your head
Nobody's on nobody's side
Never take a stranger's advice
Never let a friend fool you twice
Nobody's on nobody's side
Everybody's playing the game
But nobody's rules are the same
Nobody's on nobody's side
Never leave a moment too soon
Never waste a hot afternoon
Nobody's on nobody's side
Never stay a minute too long
Don't forget the best will go wrong
Nobody's on nobody's side
Never be the first to believe
Never be the last to deceive
Nobody's on nobody's side
Never make a promise or plan...