The poem is a long sound track. It is inspired by the following passage: "At the time of Satie's death in 1925, absolutely nobody else had ever entered his room in Arcueil since he had moved there twenty-seven years earlier. What his friends would discover there, after Satie's burial at the Cimetiere d'Arcueil, had the allure of the opening of the grave of Tutankhamun; apart from the dust and the cobwebs (which among other things made clear that Satie never composed using his piano), they discovered numerous items that included, great numbers of umbrellas, some that had apparently never been used by Satie, the portrait of Satie by Suzanne Valadon, shown above, love-letters and drawings from the Valadon romance, other letters from all periods of his life, his collection of drawings of medieval buildings (only then did his friends see a link between Satie and certain previously anonymous, journal advertisements regarding "castles in lead" and the like), other drawings and texts of autobiographical value, other memorabilia from all periods of his life, amongst which were the seven velvet suits from his Velvet gentleman period. Most importantly, however, everywhere there were compositions that were totally unknown or which were thought to have been lost. They were found behind the piano, in the pockets of the velvet suits, and in other odd places. These included the Vexations, Genevieve de Brabant, and other unpublished or unfinished stage works, The Dreamy Fish, many Schola Cantorum exercises, a previously unseen set of "canine" piano pieces, several other piano works, often without a title. Some of these works would be published later as more Gnossiennes, Pieces Froides, Enfantines, and Furniture music). Although the date of composition is uncertain (supposedly mid 1893), the Vexations appear to have been composed shortly after a brief, but intense, relation with Suzanne Valadon, the nearest Erik Satie ever got to a relation with a woman. The work was first played in public the requisite 840 times, by a team of pianists: John Cage, David Tudor, Christian Wolff, Philip Corner, Viola Farber, Robert Wood, MacRae Cook, John Cale, David Del Tredici, James Tenney, Howard Klein (the New York Times reviewer, who coincidentally was asked to play in the course of the event) and Joshua Rifkin, with two reserves, on September 9, 1963, from 6 p.m. to 12:40 p.m. the following day. Although, doubtlessly, John Cage was instrumental in creating some misconceptions about Erik Satie's work in general; nonetheless, Cage's 4' 33" composition could possibly be seen as the perfect "prelude" to Erik Satie's Vexations - how otherwise to execute the prescribed "immobilites serieuses"?