La diva de l'Empire

In around 1900, when this racy cabaret song was composed, Satie was working as a pianist in Montmartre cafés (having failed to graduate from the Paris Conservatoire) and accompanying a well-known vaudeville singer called Paulette Darty. The song was written for her to perform in the course of a musical revue, Dévidons la bobine (Unwind the coil). And it’s an example of Satie’s fascination with American ragtime jazz which had just arrived, as alluring novelty, in France. The music is a cakewalk: a high-kicking march that typically featured in African American minstrel shows (with the prize of cake for the best effort, hence the name). But the text refers to a then-notorious English music hall, The Empire, Leicester Square, where prostitutes plied their trade while “divas” like the one in this song delivered saucy routines onstage—affecting innocence while lifting their skirts to reveal frilly underwear (as the song tells you). Satie no doubt recognised connections with his working circumstances in Montmartre.