Satie - The Most Beloved "Eccentric" in Music History

1. The Man Who Owned Seven Identical Velvet Suits

The strange obsession that would come to symbolize the composer Erik Satie began suddenly in 1895, when he was 29 years old. Until then, he had dressed in the bohemian style typical of a young artist, but at one point, he inherited a large sum of money from his uncle. While an average person might have spent the fortune on a life of luxury or travel, Satie's choice was rather peculiar. He took the inheritance to a tailor and ordered seven identical suits, all in the exact same design and the same mouse-colored velvet fabric.

These "seven suits" were the beginning of what would later earn him the nickname "The Velvet Gentleman" on the streets of Paris. From that day on, he would wear this suit without fail, don a hat of the same color, and walk the hills of Montmartre carrying a cane. To an outsider, it might have looked as though he hadn't changed his clothes in nearly a decade. In reality, however, he always had six "spares" in his closet that were as good as new.

Why was he so obsessed with wearing the same clothes? It was an awakening to his own unique "aesthetic of style" that went beyond mere fashion. By fixing his existence within a specific appearance, he sought to detach himself from worldly trends and changes. This extreme consistency strangely resonates with the qualities of "repetition" and "stillness" found in his music. The moment he gained the freedom of an inheritance, he imposed upon himself the strange restriction of "continuing to wear the same clothes," thereby completing a one-of-a-kind character.

2. The Extremity of Fussy Eating: Only Eating "White Foods"

Satie's eccentricities were not limited to his clothing; they extended to the realm of "food," which is essential for human survival. In his own writings, he confessed to his highly peculiar eating habits. It was a thorough rejection of color: "I only eat white foods." The only things Satie allowed himself to consume were items judged to be visually "white," such as eggs, sugar, shredded animal fat, salt, coconut, rice, cheese, and certain types of fish.

This pickiness went far beyond the scope of mere likes and dislikes. He prioritized whether the "color" of the food matched his aesthetic over its taste or nutritional value. Red meat, green vegetables, and colorful fruits were thoroughly excluded from his table. It is said that when he invited acquaintances to dinner, they could not hide their confusion at the sight of only white ingredients arranged on a stark white plate. For him, eating was not a physiological phenomenon to satisfy hunger, but a ritual to maintain his own visual order.

Why was he so obsessed with "white"? One theory suggests it was rooted in his intense fastidiousness and a longing for spiritual purity. By placing himself in a world of white that allowed for no impurities, he may have been trying to purify his own spirit. Furthermore, the act of stripping away color to the extreme is deeply connected to the spirit of "minimalism"—the elimination of unnecessary ornamentation in music.

However, it is not hard to imagine that such a biased diet contributed to the deterioration of his health. In his later years, he suffered from cirrhosis of the liver, yet he still refused to leave the "white labyrinth" he had created for himself. Satie's table, which rejected common nutritional science and resisted even the concept of color, was a place of lonely and harrowing expression for an artist who was willing to use his own body as an experimental subject to uphold a single aesthetic.

3. 100 Umbrellas Found in the "Forbidden Room"

In 1925, after Satie passed away, his close friend Robert Caby and others visited his apartment in Arcueil, which he had not allowed anyone to enter for 27 years. It was truly a "forbidden room" where time had stood still. The friends were speechless at the state of the dust-covered room, but they were even more surprised by the large quantity of belongings discovered one after another in the closet. Among them, the most striking sight was over 100 brand-new umbrellas of the exact same type, lined up neatly and showing no signs of ever having been used.

These "100 umbrellas" are still talked about today as a mystery symbolizing Satie's loneliness and compulsive obsessions. Even on rainy days, he would sometimes go out without an umbrella because he didn't want his favorite suit to get wet. Why would a man so fastidious and concerned with his appearance hoard such a large number of umbrellas, not as a "collection," but simply for the sake of accumulating them?

When his friends searched the room further, they found unpublished musical scores and love letters addressed to a woman he loved that had never been mailed, tucked away among the mass of umbrellas. For Satie, this pile of umbrellas in the "forbidden room" may have been a mental barrier to protect himself from the outside world. It seems as though he was physically manifesting his own loneliness by surrounding himself with a massive quantity of identical items, never showing his inner heart to anyone.

This private space, revealed for the first time after his death, told the story of how much deep darkness and loneliness Satie carried behind the mask of the "Velvet Gentleman" he showed to the world. The 100 umbrellas were a crystallization of the trembling loneliness lurking behind the "serenity" and "repetition" of his music. The sight of that room, which no one could touch, highlighted the artist's incredibly pure and clumsy way of life—something that cannot be dismissed simply as the eccentric behavior of a strange man.

4. "Founder" Satie, Who Established a Religion for Himself Alone

Erik Satie's activities as an "eccentric" went beyond the realms of art and daily life, eventually reaching the domain of religion. In 1893, rebelling against the existing Catholic Church and the state of society, he founded his own new religious organization, the "Metropolitan Art Church of Jesus the Conductor." The headquarters of this church was a single room in a small apartment of only about 10 square meters in Montmartre, where he lived at the time.

Surprisingly, the only believer in this religion was its founder, Satie himself. He called himself the "Conductor," donned unique vestments, and began activities to spread his philosophy to the world. He issued a series of "official documents" to music critics and artists who held great influence at the time, containing radical rebuttals and attacks based on his own doctrines. These were often filled with bitter, surreal words that bordered on curses against those who did not understand his music.

To protect this "church of his own," he would sometimes spend all his money to create pamphlets and distribute them in the streets. To an outsider, it might have been nothing more than a comical, one-man show by an unsuccessful musician. However, Satie himself was completely serious. For him, art was something sacred that allowed for no compromise, and the worldly music world needed to be purified by the lonely altar he had erected.

In the end, this religious activity fizzled out after a few years, but the music written during this period retains a deeply serene and mystical sound reminiscent of medieval chants. The role of the "lonely founder" that Satie played can be called a painful yet noble episode that shows how much he disliked existing authority and needed a pure sanctuary of his own.

5. The Incident Where He Scolded the Audience with "Furniture Music"

BGM that plays in modern cafes and hotel lobbies. It was Satie who proposed the concept of 'furniture music,' which can be called the forerunner of this. He believed that 'music should exist as a background to life, just like the sound of tableware or chairs.' Music that refuses to be listened to consciously and simply colors the atmosphere of the place. This overly avant-garde attempt caused a hilarious (or, for Satie, tragic) incident at a concert in 1920.

During the intermission of a concert held at a gallery in Paris, Satie took up instruments with his fellow musicians and declared in advance: 'This is music for the intermission. Please ignore the performance and continue chatting and walking around.' However, once the performance began, an unexpected situation occurred. Because the audience at the time was accustomed to the etiquette that 'when a musician starts playing' equals 'listen quietly,' people fell silent all at once, straightened their posture, and focused on the stage.

Seeing this, Satie was furious. He stopped the performance and shouted at the audience, 'Talk!' and 'Walk around!' A composer who wanted the music to function as background music, and an audience that wanted to listen with respect. This surreal exchange clearly shows how far ahead of his time Satie's ideal of 'music that blends into life' was.

For him, dragging music down from the 'altar of art' and turning it into something practical like furniture was the ultimate rebellion against the traditional classical world. Forcing the audience to 'not listen' and getting angry when they did. This episode can be said to be a scene unique to Satie, the 'eccentric,' where his stubbornness and his extremely dry and novel perspective on the existence of music intersected.

6. The Ultimate Reply: 'Three Pieces in the Form of a Pear'

Satie's eccentricity was also fully demonstrated in his sense of 'retort' to criticism from those around him. A prime example is an episode that occurred with his close friend and rival, the great composer Claude Debussy. One day, Debussy offered some well-intentioned advice regarding Satie's music: 'Your music is very charming, but doesn't it lack a bit of form?'

In music, 'form' refers to traditional structures such as sonata form. An average composer would try to make up for it by honing their skills and writing pieces with more complex structures. However, Satie's counterargument went in an unexpected direction. After a while, he brought a new score to Debussy. The title written on the cover was 'Three Pieces in the Form of a Pear.'

'If you say it has no form, I'll make it in the shape of a pear.' It was a very direct and surreal irony. Moreover, although the title said 'Three,' it was actually composed of seven short pieces, a further trick to confuse the listener. It is said that Debussy could only smile bitterly at Satie's unique humor when he saw this title.

This episode tells us how much Satie disliked authoritative teachings and the common sense of the music world that dictated 'how things should be.' Instead of trying to hide his shortcomings, he used them to his advantage, invalidating artistic definitions with just a title. Clouding serious discussion with humor. This 'ultimate reply' can be said to be a masterpiece born from the sharp intellect and twisted pride of the man named Satie.

7. 'Vexations' (Harassment) Repeated 840 Times

The piece Satie left behind that is closest to 'madness' is 'Vexations.' The score for this piece is short, less than one page, but it contained an unbelievable instruction: 'Play this motif 840 times in succession.' At first glance, it seems like a joke or a typo, but Satie was serious. If actually performed according to the instructions, the time required would range from 18 to 24 hours.

The title of this piece, 'Vexations,' means 'harassment' or 'irritation.' It is truly a 'harassment' that tests the physical and mental limits of both the performer and the audience. Why did Satie force such merciless repetition? Within it lay his extremely radical avant-garde spirit, which sought to strip music of 'story' and 'emotion' and present the pure duration of sound, or perhaps 'the hell of time' itself.

During Satie's lifetime, this piece was never completed, but after his death, the first attempt to perform the entire piece was made by John Cage and others. It is said that when the pianists took turns playing and the final note ended, the venue was enveloped in a strange trance. Some in the audience had their minds disturbed by the same melody repeated endlessly, while others entered a state of deep meditation.

This episode tells us that Satie was not just a 'funny eccentric,' but a destroyer who sought to shake the very foundations of music. The act of repeating the same melody for 18 hours was the ultimate rebellion against the conventional view of music that pursues beauty. This grand 'harassment' orchestrated by Satie still resonates today as the extreme north of minimalism in modern music, in a place beyond our understanding.

8. The 'Public Vitriol Postcard' Incident That Almost Got Him Arrested

While Satie wrote quiet music, he harbored an extremely aggressive passion inside that, once ignited, could not be stopped. In particular, he thrust a 'knife of words' without mercy at critics who did not try to understand his work. The most significant incident was a lawsuit that occurred in 1917.

The origin of the matter was a harsh review of Satie's stage work 'Parade' by critic Jean Poueigh. Enraged, Satie sent a postcard of rebuttal to the other party, but the way he did it was insane. The text was filled with abuse such as 'You don't understand anything about music, you're just a filthy brainless idiot,' along with obscene expressions. Moreover, he went out of his way to choose a 'postcard' instead of a sealed letter. In other words, he sent it in a state where anyone, including postal workers and delivery personnel, could read the abuse.

The critic, enraged by this harassment that could be called a 'public execution,' sued Satie for defamation. As a result of the trial, Satie was given a sentence that was no laughing matter: 8 days in prison and a fine. Facing the crisis of being taken into police custody, he managed to avoid imprisonment with the help of friends like Stravinsky, but this incident caused a stir in Paris at the time.

While displaying such aggressive behavior, Satie himself somehow believed it was 'legitimate self-defense.' Jumping over logical discussion, he physically struck the other party with words that made them thoroughly uncomfortable. This clumsy and extreme communication was also a reflection of how delicate he was and how much he feared his art being tainted.

9. Various 'Strange Instructions' Written in the Score

For a musician, a musical score is a 'blueprint' that usually contains specific instructions for performance, such as 'play loudly' or 'play quickly.' However, performers who open Satie's scores often find themselves standing in front of the staff in bewilderment. This is because they contain surreal and 'unplayable' instructions that far transcend musical common sense.

For example, one of his masterpieces features a list of instructions ranging from abstract ones like 'open your heart' to philosophical—or perhaps one should say unreasonable—demands like 'like a toothache' or 'as if looking at yourself in a mirror.' As they escalate, they include requests regarding the performer's character, such as 'little by little, and humbly' or 'not flippantly,' and even words that force physical pain, such as 'painfully.'

These instructions are invisible to the audience and are conveyed only to the performer. Satie turned the extremely private space of a musical score into an intellectual 'playground' for the performer. He was not simply seeking an accurate reproduction of the notes. By throwing these strange words at them, he aimed to shake the performer's fixed ideas and draw out 'something' from within them.

Satie often named his music things like 'Preludes for a Dog' or wrote disjointed stories he called 'commentary' throughout the score. For him, a score was not only a medium for recording sound but also a literary work and a place to express humor. With just a pen, he scattered the ultimate irony against the conventional education of the conservatory into every corner of his scores.

10. Re-enrolling in 'Music School' at the Age of 40

Perhaps the greatest 'plot twist' in Satie's life was his decision to re-enroll in music school at the age of 39. By then, he was already known for masterpieces like 'Gymnopédies' and was something of a celebrity in the Parisian music scene, but in 1905, he suddenly knocked on the doors of the prestigious Schola Cantorum.

In fact, in his youth, Satie had been harshly criticized at the Paris Conservatory as 'talentless' and 'lazy,' which forced him to drop out. His unique style, built through self-study, was often mocked by orthodox musicians as 'amateur music lacking fundamentals.' His re-enrollment at 39 was his own spectacular way of 'settling the score' with the world's cold ridicule.

Mixing with students 20 years his junior, Satie studied strict classical techniques like counterpoint and fugue with surprising seriousness. The man once ridiculed as a 'selfish eccentric' took notes more diligently than anyone else, completed his assignments, and three years later, received his diploma with the excellent grade of 'très bien.' By standing on the same ground as the authorities who had rejected him and mastering their rules perfectly, he gave his art the strongest shield: technical backing.

After graduation, his music became more concise and possessed a more robust structure. However, the 'eccentric' soul within remained completely unshaken. If anything, he had gained the invincible confidence of knowing, 'I possess academic knowledge, but I am choosing to ignore it.'

Satie remained a heretic until his death, but at the root of this was such tremendous effort and sincere integrity toward art. His eccentric behavior was not the work of a mere attention-seeker, but an incredibly clumsy and noble battle to continue walking the path he believed in without letting anyone get in his way.