Slow Dakota - I Saw Christ Crying in Hermès

Tromping through the snow this week made me think about scarcity. Listening to this beautiful, simple song many times over brought me to a the realization that simple moments, and simple songs, can open up a deep well. Read this letter songwriter PJ Sauerteig sent me with his newest track:

Hi Mark!

Here’s a story for you. I don’t ask you to believe it, but I do ask you to read it.

I spent some time in Vienna this summer; all over the city, there are basilicas and chapels and cathedrals that host free organ or choral recitals every week. One sunny afternoon, as I was exiting a choral recital in Vienna’s central shopping district, I looked up and saw an Hermès store across the street. Having never been to an Hermès, I thought I’d go in to see what all the sleek glass and guarded doors were about. 

I walked in to the packed ground floor, full of tourists from Asia and the Middle East, lots of expensive scarves and dresses, etc. I perused, and then walked up the grand staircase to the store’s second story - to my surprise, I was suddenly the only person on the floor. No staff, no security guards, no shoppers - nobody but me, and dimly lit rooms of clothes and home furnishings. It was deeply eerie to walk around, having the entire floor all to myself. But as I wandered from room to room, through an abandoned hallway, I heard a faint sound like crying a room or two away. 

Feeling somehow like I’d stumbled into a situation in which I didn’t belong, I started to double back down the hallway, to rush back downstairs and back into the anonymous crowd. Then a door opened, and I turned around to see a Middle Eastern man with puffed-up, crying eyes, a long beard, and a long, black shirt so thin you could see every detail of his chest. He could have been 20 he could have been 60 it was truly impossible to tell. His English was almost perfect, though, with a pleasant accent: “How many people were at the concert?” He asked. My heart sank, and all of a sudden I felt deeply uncomfortable, even unsafe - that this stranger knew that I had just been at a church concert. But I bucked up and didn’t let on I was afraid: “15 people, probably,” I said. “How many people are downstairs right now, do you think,” he asked. “In the store? Probably 50,” I answered.  

He cracked a smile, and asked, “How much are those pants?” I had forgotten that I was carrying around a pair of Hermes jeans to try on - just for the fun of it. I could never afford anything from the store. I held the jeans up, looked, and answered, “3,200 euros,” and as I put the jeans down on a table, the man asked, “How much did you pay for the concert?” “It was free, I didn’t pay anything,” I said. “That’s funny to me. Is that funny to you?” He asked. I was frozen, and too awkward to simply walk back downstairs. He continued, “That more people are here than there. Maybe the church should charge 3,200 euros for the concerts, maybe all the people will want to go there, after all.” I don’t quite remember how exactly he worded his next little monologue, but to paraphrase, “Everyone thinks that free things are the best - that if you give something away for free, everyone will want it, and line up for it. But it’s not like that. People are more interested in expensive things. Anyone can go to those church concerts - even drunks, who go in to sleep in the pews. But not everyone can come in here and buy clothes. There aren’t homeless people sleeping here. Except me!” He said, and smiled again. “I like sleeping in here, it smells nice, and air conditioning in an old building like this is rare,” and then he just exhaled, and put his hands on his hips. As if he was satisfied with the interaction, and there was nothing else to say. All of this time, not a single other person had come upstairs to where we were talking. “Okay,” I said. “I won’t tell on you,” I said. “Don’t worry - they know I’m here!” he said. By this time, I had already turned to walk downstairs, where there were fewer shoppers than before, and the sun had started to set through the windows.

That interaction was the impetus for this song - the second (and most recent) single off of Slow Dakota’s upcoming LP, “The Ascension of Slow Dakota,” due out in April on Massif Records. The single is called “I Saw Christ Crying in Hermes” - it recounts that conversation (one of the absolute weirdest of my entire life, it still gives me a stomachache to think about it). And it also expands upon it, theorizing that Christianity’s appeal and influence in our culture has deteriorated for purely economic reasons. That is, Christ offers salvation to anyone and everyone - as He sees us all as equal, flawed but loved, children of God. But in a culture that assigns value based on scarcity, Christ’s vision is deeply unattractive. We value things that are hard to attain - things that set us apart from other consumers - ways of signifying that we are exceptional. A destination is valued by how few people can get in - the more exclusive it is, the more desirable. And so, who would want what Christ is selling - if He gives it away to anyone and everyone for free? What good is a lock on a door, if everyone has a key? Hermes will always draw a bigger crowd than the free chapel concert down the road.  

Hope this finds you well,

PJ Sauerteig, of Slow Dakota 

Founder of Massif Records: Fort Wayne, IN

Read more Letters to YVYNYL.