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From The Straight Dope:

In Steve Miller's "The Joker," what is "the pompatus of love"?

October 25, 1996
What does "pompatus" mean? There's a movie out now called The Pompatus of Love, and of course it contains the Steve Miller song as a theme. I can't find "pompatus" in the dictionary. Any clues?

— Cane95, via America Online

Cecil replies:

Clues? Pfui. We have cracked the freaking case, thanks to some outstanding legwork by Jon Cryer — actor, cowriter, and coproducer of the movie Pompatus of Love — and my new assistant, J.K. Fabian. J.K. has what it takes to make a real impact in this business: pluck, luck, and an outstanding record collection.

"Pompatus" mystified millions when Steve Miller used it in his 1973 hit "The Joker": "Some people call me the space cowboy. / Yeah! Some call me the gangster of love. / Some people call me Maurice, / Cause I speak of the Pompatus of love."

"Space cowboy" and "gangster of love" referred to earlier Miller songs. Maurice was from Miller's 1972 tune "Enter Maurice," which appeared on the album Recall the Beginning ... A Journey From Eden. "Enter Maurice" had this lyric: "My dearest darling, come closer to Maurice so I can whisper sweet words of epismetology in your ear and speak to you of the pompitous of love."

Great, now there were two mystery words. What's more, it appeared even Miller himself was uncertain how pompatus was spelled. It appeared as "pompatus" in at least two books of sheet music but as "pompitous" in the lyrics included with "Recall the Beginning."

Miller has said little about the P-word over the years. In at least one interview, fans say, he claimed "it doesn't mean anything--it's just jive talk."

Not quite.

Some sharp-eared music fan noticed the "Enter Maurice" lyric above bore a marked resemblance to some lines in a rhythm and blues tune called "The Letter" by the Medallions. The song had been a hit in R & B circles in 1954. J.K. found the record. It had the lines, "Oh my darling, let me whisper sweet words of [something like epismetology] and discuss the [something like pompatus] of love." J.K. tried to find the sheet music for the song, but came up only with the Box Tops hit ("My baby, she wrote me a letter").

Then came a stroke of luck. Jon Cryer the movie guy had stumbled onto the secret of pompatus. Eager to reveal it to the world, he sent it to — who, Rolling Stone? The New York Times?

Of course not. He sent it to us.

Speculation about "pompatus" was a recurring motif in the script for The Pompatus of Love. While the movie was in postproduction Cryer heard about "The Letter." During a TV interview he said that the song had been written and sung by a member of the Medallions named Vernon Green. Green, still very much alive, was dozing in front of the tube when the mention of his name caught his attention. He immediately contacted Cryer.

Green had never heard "The Joker." Cryer says that when he played it for Green "he laughed his ass off." Green's story:

"You have to remember, I was a very lonely guy at the time. I was only 14 years old, I had just run away from home, and I walked with crutches," Green told Cryer. He scraped by singing songs on the streets of Watts.

One song was "The Letter," Green's attempt to conjure up his dream woman. The mystery words, J.K. ascertained after talking with Green, were "puppetutes" and "pizmotality." (Green wasn't much for writing things down, so the spellings are approximate.)

"Pizmotality described words of such secrecy that they could only be spoken to the one you loved," Green told Cryer. And puppetutes? "A term I coined to mean a secret paper-doll fantasy figure [thus puppet], who would be my everything and bear my children." Not real PC, but look, it was 1954.

Green went on to record many other songs and is still writing today. He can be reached at P.O. Box 1394, Perris, CA 92572.

Steve Miller must have loved R&B. Another line from "The Joker" goes "I really love your peaches, wanna shake your tree. / Lovey dovey, lovey dovey, lovey dovey all the time." A similar line may be found in the Clovers' 1953 hit "Lovey Dovey": "I really love your peaches wanna shake your tree / Lovey dovey, lovey dovey all the time."

When I spoke to Miller's publicist Jim Welch about these coincidences, he said Miller's comment was "artistic license." Pressed a bit, Welch said Miller acknowledged that he'd been "influenced" by earlier artists. Not perhaps the most forthcoming statement in the world. But at least we now know it didn't come to him in a dream.

Fade To Green
From Rockin' Radio News:

Vernon Green, leader of the Medallions, died Dec. 24th [2000] in a hospital in Los Angeles. Best known for "The Letter" and "Buick 59," they were the first doo-wop group to record for Dootone Records. Their first release, "Buick 69," (based on Todd Rhodes' double-entendre R&B hit "Rocket 69"), backed with a ballad called "The Letter," was a double-sided West Coast hit. Green's famous recitation on "The Letter" contained the nonsense lyric, "the pulpitudes of love," which was later picked up by Steve Miller as "the pompitudes of love" — which became the title of a 1990s film.

So, yet another spelling. But at least Vernon gets the credit he deserves.

— Cecil Adams