Erik Satie - Gymnopédie No.1

Erik Satie was a dirty hippie in a top hat, living the bohemian life in Montmartre with the other dirty hippies in top hats in the late 19th century Belle Epoch.  Musically, he seemed to know everyone who was worth knowing - like Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.

More (financially) important, he became the pianist at the famed Paris nightclub Le Chat Noir as well as the organist at the Rosicrucian temple.  Le Chat Noir paid regularly.

In short, he was a dirty hippie, rebelling against his bourgeois upbringing.  Along the way he became a bona fide communist.  All in all, he fits the profile of someone you would like to punch in the nose if you met him walking down the street.  But along the way, he wrote this:



I guess we can forgive even such as he, for music such as this.