When walking the Le Puy Camino in France, my two friends and I were called les trois dames américaines. We trois wound our way to Conques, a French village which looks like just the place you’d find Princess Buttercup. The surreal quality of Conques exceeds any AI-generated travel porn you might have seen online. Really, we had to pinch ourselves to check that we weren’t sleeping.
This was the last leg of our 9-day walk covering just over 80 miles. After Conques, we would take a train to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port to hike the Pyrenees from France to Spain the following day. But for now, we were grateful for this sleepy hamlet nested in a valley, and our only plans for the evening would be to visit the local church, the Abbey Church of Sainte-Foy
At dusk each day, a church official offers up the history of the abbey in front of the main doors. I really don’t remember much of what our guide said; every night after our long walks was a struggle to simply stay standing with eyes open. But that all changed in an instant after we toured the nooks and crannies of the abbey and sat down for a little musical entertainment.
A monk began playing wildly on the organ. Here’s a small sample:
But perhaps the most shocking part of the performance was the monk’s signature piece. As he started to play it, the lyrics appeared in my mind . . .
There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
It’s been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God, I know, I’m one
In this little French village boasting a population of 250, I listened to a wild organ rendition of House of the Rising Sun. (Sadly, I was too dumbfounded to record it). The monk’s performance of this cautionary song, about either a brothel or a gambling hall but surely about one’s ruin, took me to another place. It was a spiritual moment to be sure, but I can’t articulate why.
Imagine, if you will, the monk - perhaps working out his issues - as he pounded out the notes:
Oh, mother, tell your children
Not to do what I have done
Spend your lives in sin and misery
In the House of the Rising Sun
Or maybe he was a fan of this trad folk song popularized by The Animals (which happened to debut in the year I was born). I’ll never know, but I’ll never forget it.
