Wahnfried: Time Actor (1979)

Richard Wahnfried - Time Actor

Wahnfried 1

Klaus Schulze (synthesizers)
Arthur Brown (vocals)
Vincent Crane (keyboards)
Wolfgang Tiepold (cello)
Michael Shrieve (drums)

Track Listing:

1.	Time Actor	08:58
2.	Time Factory	10:39
3.	Charming the Wind	04:48
4.	Grandma's Clockwork	04:08
5.	Distorted Emission 1	05:29
6.	The Silent Sound of the Ground	15:02
7.	Time Echoes	08:20

Rating: 4 Stars

From 1979 to 2000 Klaus Schulze released eight albums using the name Richard Wahnfried or simply Wahnfried. This is the only pseudonym he's used in his career. Richard is the first name of Richard Wagner, and Wahnfried is the name of Wagner's family home. On the original releases Klaus Schulze isn't named as a musician, but most of the re-releases name him explicitly. Some are even (incorrectly) described as Klaus Schulze albums.

The Wahnfried albums are a new direction for Klaus Schulze. They're albums in which he experiments with music styles that differ from his usual albums. There's no consistency between the Wahnfried albums. They're different to one another. The other musicians on the albums can be considered backing musicians, but Arthur Brown was responsible for writing the lyrics on "Time Actor".

When I first bought the LP I listened mostly to the first side (the first four tracks), because it's more similar to Klaus Schulze's usual music than the second side.

The CD is currently out of print, but it will probably be re-released soon.

I've transcribed the lyrics of the songs on the album, since they don't seem to be available anywhere else on the Internet. I used the inlay of the original LP as the basis, but the songs often deviate from the printed lyrics, so I've corrected them wherever necessary.

---

A lecture is commented on by a listening particle of wisdom.

Time-Actor:

The Time-Actor is an invisible factor, working in sequential pauses, and events and results and causes bringing to pass a happening, an event of time, recurring and returning to its source. Of course, what we all see is what happens to be at this moment in time, that we can appreciate with our minds, unless, of course, we are blind to the resultant frequencies: the causal nodes and patterns of vibrational disturbance that express themselves as objects and things and even voices like this one, which, for instance, can bend time.

On the other hand, we can say that time does not exist at all and that it's just the way that we have to grasp things with our minds in order to be able to see anything or hear anything at all; and that in this state of perfect freedom, time is neither a moment nor beyond nor forever; time is the nowness of the singleness of the oneness, the uniqueness of the inseparability of the cause and effect syndrome that produces itself in the notion of time and sequence, cause and moment, result and pattern, if you see what I mean.

And yet, if there were no time, there could be no division, no extension, no life as we know it, no duration. And so, if this is a division of something which does not exist, then how can we say that we who experience time and we who create time by being here at all can experience something which doesn't exist? How can we say that we exist? Well, as long as there is time for us to do so, we can be here, we can see here, we can stand here. We can even examine what we do when we are here, although, in one manner of speaking, as time doesn't exist we're not here at all.

Particle: With me on the programme today, we'd like to congratulate this particular human for coming somewhat near to realising that we particles ...

Time-Actor: ... sequence and duration and strength and power. Something which we cannot describe, but which everything that exists describes.

Particle: Right.

Time-Actor: Then this is what time is describing, and therefore time may be said  to be the description of what ultimately is.

Particle: Not bad.

Time-Actor: And so we, the time-actors, the invisible factors, fashion a coat for time to wear, so that it can see itself and enjoy its own beauty.

Particle: Ah, there's just one little flaw here, because you presume time to be separate from what ultimately is; and yet any description of what is must be a description ...

Time-Actor: No!

Particle: ... of time itself of itself.

Time-Actor: No!

Particle: This is very difficult ...

Time-Actor: No!

Particle: ... for the human mind to appreciate, particles, and I'm sure you'd like to give him ...

Time-Actor: No!

Particle: ... a round of applause, that he has actually come somewhat near towards assimilating a real identity ...

Time-Actor: No!

Particle: ... a humble view of their own part in the creation of the universe around us, within us, beyond us.

Time-Actor: Of course, the wonderful thing of it all is that no one has time to experience all of time. And even if we added together all the people who ever have experienced time, and will experience it, they still wouldn't describe it ...

Particle: Why not?

Time-Actor: ... and couldn't describe it.

Particle: Why not?

Time-Actor: What is a long time to one person is a short time to another, and is exactly the same time to a clock.

Particle: Ha ha ha ha ha.

Time-Actor: And if we tried to get all the people to speak at the same time about all the time there'd be a horrible jabbering of voices. So if we really wanted all the people everywhere that ever experienced time to talk about time at the same time, they would all have to say one single thing together.

Particle: Time!

Time-Actor: Perhaps that would be the word "Time", but then it ceases to have any meaning.

Particle: Time!

Chorus: Out there in the dark
there's never a spark of light
to see the future turning.
Where can we sigh? Is there no die?
Can you not see the dice is burning?
Look on the floor. Can you be more?
Can you not see what there before do lie?

Factory Workers: We are the creatures of the dawn,
where wondrous things may be worn,
there are houses to be seen,
there are fields that have been green before,
but now beside,
burning inside,
looking inside,
the ligaments of memory are torn.

Chorus: Torn apart, deep in your heart
there is a spark of light that's growing,
looking inside, turn it to the light.
Can you not see
that time is flowing,
waiting to be?
Turn up to be,
come on and be,
it's got to be real, real, real, real, real, real.
Look in your mind, the factory of time is turning.

Angel-Craftsmen: We made you once,
we made you twice,
we made you all with no advice,
and now and again,
taking your pain,
we have turned you, we have buried you,
we have learned you, we discerned you,
we have formed you, we have torn you.

Oreo: Like Prometheus bound unto the rock,
where came no aid,
there I stand with only time for my grave,
only one witness to see
where it will be,
as like a wave upon the sea.

Prophet: I told you before, I showed you before,
I opened the door, and you were not there,
you couldn't care, you never could share the dream.
I asked you why, I looked you in the eye,
I told you you would never search the heavens.
Look in the sea, look in your sun,
look in the way you've been together.
Can't you see
humanity is the one that's lost forever
when the days have begun?

Factory Workers: In the dark, out of the spark,
look in the past,
see the last of the future days that were returning,
look into the darkness,
see the skies and the eyes,
realise.

Arch-Angel: Look around you,
see the heart and the mind and the body
that I have made for you to wear,
of the corn, golden corn,
you will feel then the trees
and the mountains so bare.

Factory Workers: The brilliant red of the flowers in the sun,
aching gold of the sand
as time runs before your gate
like a river out of nowhere with no end.

Angel-Craftsmen: See what a gift we have given you,
you who realised only as the will to be
before the stars and the sun were formed,
we are in eternity.
Open the gate for you to wear
the raiment of the golden dawn
that you will share everywhere.

Chorus: Now you must return
to the factory of time,
and unless you can open the gate this time,
you will know me to be,
and now I'm always to see
the part you will be,
and from your fingers
we'll take the streams
that made you dance so gay
on your way, carefree stranger,
free from danger.

Oreo: Lay down your limbs,
lay still in the darkness,
feel the light play upon you so bright.
No one can save,
only time for your grave.

How I have longed for this embrace,
lost here, lust here,
lust here in vast and emptiness,
vast and emptiness,
lost in vast and emptiness,
from wonder borne on wings of taste,
to grace this form with beauty blessed,
to charm the wind,
to charm the wind to be your steed.
How swift this world did conquered fall,
fall, fall, fall, fall
and fall and shape itself.
To your decree
till all amazed the heart now freed
heard both our sovereign voices call,
"Love's wish is my command to be
in passion's face to see God's eyes
where beauty's gaze on beauty lies".

Instrumental.

Man: I went down
in the darkest part of town.

Woman: All of you
riding down the sea,
all of you, all of you
singing down the sky,
riding all over the sky,
got to be true,
holding you.

Man: Speak to me,
talk aloud,
come into the Earth,
come into the land,
come into the lane
to play the final game,
this is the way we're gonna start to run
around the lane with me.
Now!
This is the beginning of wonders for day,
time is done forever and then falling away,
working and loving,
and turning around,
turning the sound.

Zugo: Yeah,
Oh yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chorus: Oh babe, it's alright, open wide, hold me tight.

Zugo: Love is to touch you
and to feel you keeping me
close by your side.
Hey, I want to hold you.
Hey, I wanna love you.
Hey, won't you be mine?
Come along and hold me,
hold me so closely,
let me know that you're here,
come on together,
make it so that I can't feel.

Chorus: In the forest,
like a desert,
open wide,
inside not a sound
on the grass.

Zugo: Love is so strange
in why it's dawning,
running down,
running so high,
weighing forever,
tearing me,
it's so strange.

Chorus: Now I ain't the one for
loud demonstration,
you can be finding
what do you mean.
Look in the future
way in the bar stool,
look at the drinks
and the cocktail scene.
Talk of the weather,
talk of the past,
and talk of the people you once knew.
Talk of the weather,
talk of the past,
and talk of the people you once knew.
"Do you remember
way down December,
way in September,
way back in June?
Do you remember
when we're together
way down the future?"
There's no clue.
There's a stool,
there's a stool.

Zugo: Coming together,
all of the people,
I feel the future
in the wonder
of the gate you knew,
looking out and way beyond
and over the sea so blue is you,
what to do loving you.

Chorus: It's alright, trust sound,
out of sight, down in the night,
way in the forest, in the ground.
Open it wide. What's inside?

Zugo: Come here, babe,
and bring your bones,
never never leave,
never never never never.
Heaven knows, Heaven knows,
Heaven knows, Heaven knows what you feel,
Heaven knows.
Like a gryphon in the forest,
touching hands,
like the moonbeams on the shadows ageing,
like the windows on the shifting sands,
looking on the faces,
and they're saying words that
you can never hear because they never
said nothing
ever knowing what's meant.

Left, right, left, right, left, right,
I'm gonna go tonight,
Left, right, left, right, left, right,
I'm gonna go tonight,
Yeah, I'm gonna go tonight,
gonna walk, gonna hide, gonna run,
gonna beg, gonna steal,
gonna walk home at night,
gonna walk, gonna beg, gonna steal,
gonna come in the front door,
run out the back,
come in the window too,
look in round.
Hear the sound,
you know you'll do what you got to do.
Yeah, I know there's the one thing that you never had,
you gave it away, so it can't be so bad,
come on, come on, please.

Chorus: See them touching round about,
see them jump and see them shout,
fish on a dish,
fool in a pool,
Jumping Jim Dandy, jump in the pool,
getting on down,
getting on down,
getting on down the road,
getting on down,
getting on down,
getting on down the road,
getting on down,
getting on down,
getting on down the road,
just getting on down,
getting on down,
getting on down the road.

Zugo: When my bones are shaking
and my back is weak,
carrying on this way,
I'm looking at a fool
down in a pool,
and I don't know what to say.
Yes, see here my beauty,
don't take now,
this is this moment right here,
I'm looking down and I see the sounds
of the future of those in here.
Look out, Mama, my Mama, here I come.
Look out, Mama, here I come.
Look out, Mama, what you say?
Look out, Mama, I'll be here today.
Look out, Mama, look life.
Look out, Mama, look life deep inside.
Look out, Mama.
Look out, Mama, oh you can feel
I'm gonna make an appeal.
Keep on walking, keep on still,
keep on moving like you used to do,
keep on living your own life,
keep on living like you thrive.

Like a deer in the forest
glued to a tree,
I don't know if I'll be ever be turning back,
don't care if I don't get what I want,
gonna be there
because something got me,
tearing my soul from my senses,
from my body,
tearing it from my heart,
tearing it deep, deep inside,
no one ever coming, it's deep, deep deeper.

Oh babe!
Oh babe!
Oh babe!

Oh babe!
Oh babe!
Oh babe!

Another time
and another place,
and another rhythm,
and another face.
Another movement,
another song,
another pain gonna come along.
Only no more time for me,
gonna be in one big kiss,
kiss you here, guess you know
time is coming to let everything go.

Chorus: Open wide down in the forest,
looking down,
feel the sound,
open wide down in the forest,
look all around.

Zugo: Just so you know, it's gonna be me,
come on, babe, come on, babe,
come on, babe, come on, babe,
give it all away.

Chorus: you know it's free,

Zugo: What you got to say?
Come on, little babe,
throw it all away,
don't you know it's free?

You know it, you know it, you know it,
you know it's alright now, babe.
My father was a vicar and my mother was a deer,
my future as a badger.
She knew I loved her,
she knew I could understand,
she would always tell me that I'd be a man.
"One day you'll grow
and one day you'll fly,
one day you'll be like a bird in the sky.
Banging your feet across the stool,
you're gonna be like a great big bull.
Looking round and feeling desire,
you're gonna be wild like a lion.
Looking around", she used to tell me,
"You're gonna play like a human dog".

Come on down with me.

Chorus: Down in the forest there's no more sound.

Zugo: Come on down, can't you see?

Chorus: On the grass it's all free.

Unintelligible.