Bernd Klein · Lyrics, composition and performance
Polysephone
When the world is upside down
A song about inverted certainties, disappearing truth, and the question of whether we resist or merely watch.
“Polysephone” grew from the image of a world in which familiar roles turn into their opposites: sheep seek protection from wolves, fish swim towards the shark, the thief guards the treasures, and the liar decides what is to count as truth.
A coined name between myth and polyphony
Polysephone is a deliberately invented word. It first evokes Persephone, the figure from Greek mythology who moves between the upper world and the underworld. At the same time it echoes polyphony — the interplay of several independent voices — and also the word symphony.
This is not an etymological derivation, but a musical play on words. The Greek phonē means voice or sound; for me, “Polysephone” thus becomes a figure of many voices and, at the same time, of two worlds. That ambiguity fits the piece: nothing remains unambiguous, and apparently fixed meanings change sides.
What happens when the concepts themselves lose their direction — when protection becomes dangerous, lies become credible, and truth becomes suspect?
The complete original lyrics
When the gentle sheep choose ruthless wolves to keep them safe,
When fish swim straight into the shark's wide, waiting maw like a grave.
Will we rise, will we fight, will we break through the silence and chains?
Or just silently watch as it all disappears in the fire and flames?
When the blind mislead the sighted to the edge of a steep, high cliff,
When the road to escape is shattered, winding, rugged, and stiff.
When the thief is crowned as the guardian of treasures untold,
When the liar's deceit is embraced and his falsehoods are sold,
When the poison is offered as the one and only cure.
Will we rise, will we fight, will we break through the silence and chains?
Or just silently watch as it all disappears in the fire and flames?
When silence drowns out the wisdom of those who see through disguise,
When the truth disappears, entangled in a web full of lies,
When the world turns over, collapsing in sorrow and shame,
When they still wear their masks and insist that it's all just the same.
Will we rise, will we fight, will we break through the silence and chains?
Or just silently watch as it all disappears in the fire and flames?
Oh, the world's upside down, turning fast as the echoes resound,
Where deception stands tall and the truth is left lost in the ground.
Will we rise, will we fight, will we break through the silence and chains?
Or just silently watch as it all disappears in the fire and flames?
The Scream – an image of a disturbed world
I also used “Polysephone” for my film “Did This Artist Predict the Future?” about Edvard Munch’s The Scream. For me, Munch’s image is not simply a depiction of fear. It feels like an image of a reality in which familiar order itself has begun to waver — which is precisely why it fits these lyrics so well.
Perhaps The Scream is even a little too effective: the film is hardly among the most harmless images on my channel. Anyone who still dares can find it here:
An earlier video from the same circle of ideas
An earlier video also brings together music, artistic transformation and the question of a reality that has become uncertain.
The album Polysephone
“Polysephone” is also the title track of my album of the same name. The album was released in 2025 and contains six pieces. Another track is “Eel’usive Truth”, which later accompanied the two experimental Van Gogh films.
Two pieces, one related question
“Polysephone” and “Eel’usive Truth” are musically different, but they circle around a related experience: what happens when reality no longer seems reliable? In “Polysephone”, the world is turned upside down through language. In “Eel’usive Truth”, truth slips away like something one is just trying to grasp.
For me, this question connects music and image. That is why both pieces appear in films concerned with perception, artistic transformation and the relationship between reality and imagination.