10. Erik SatiePiano Music
The song that resonated with me was probably one of the better known ones – either one of the Gymnopédies or one of the Gnossiennes, and I was absolutely spellbound, I’d never heard it before. Of course now it’s played in adverts, it’s ubiquitous, but it wasn’t then. It was played to me for the first time by my first manager, Tom Johnston – he was 10 years older and he became a bit of a mentor when he became the manager. One late afternoon at his flat, he said, “Have you ever heard Erik Satie?”, which I hadn’t. And he pulled out an LP from its sleeve and he placed it on his old record player, and I distinctly remember, there was late afternoon sunshine pouring through the windows and filtering through the leaves – he had all these plants in front of the window, and he slowly dropped the needle. And then I heard what was probably ‘Gymnopédie no.1’.
It’s this crackly old vinyl, and it really blew my mind; just the simplicity of it, the amount of emotion that could be rung from so few notes being played, and the notes being played so sparingly. That music has stayed with me, although I suppose certain pieces of music get played too much, and once they get associated too much with advertising or whatever, it can diminish the power. But that was a real pivotal moment, because I’d been listening to this more experimental post-punk stuff, and then was suddenly turned on to the classical. It led to an interesting detour. And just that memory of the afternoon sunshine fitted the moment perfectly, the sun filtering through the leaves. It was a very beautiful moment.
