The Pompatus (or Puppetutes) of Love

Alternate title: I finally figured out what the fuck Steve Miller was singing about, thanks to Bob Dylan.

Even more alternate: Greetings to the Deadspinners here to learn about William & Mary's basketball futility. Today we're talking obscure musical trivia - it's our blog, dammit, and you will listen to every word we say. Tribe hoops stuff is here, here, and here, and will be back at the top of this page by tomorrow morning.

I don't claim Whitneypedic knowledge of all things musical; that particular savantic trait will forever be the domain of my compadre. Nonetheless, I love music almost as much as I do sports. And Muppets.

While my musical tastes generally run to the progressive/alternative, I dig all kinds of tunes. As it relates to today's efforts in advanced time and space wasting, the Steve Miller Band has always been one of my favorite classic rock outfits. That makes them the tallest midgets, to be sure, but there's a certain wink-and-a-nod humor to their music that I like.

In some ways, that insouciance is captured neatly in 'The Joker', as Miller sings, "Some people call me Maurice/'Cause I speak of the pompatus of love". (Don't forget the catchy whaaamp, whaaaa guitar riff between the lines - it's a killer.) For years, in fact until two days ago, I just assumed that I was mishearing the line, and that the 'pompatus' my ears translated was actually another word. An actual word. (Brief digression here for a moment: yes, I am in fact aware of the "internet" and its power to solve mysteries and give information. I guess the mystery of 'pompatus' never burrowed deeply enough into my conscious mind to elicit any interest in knowing more.)

And so I found myself listening to the Bob Dylan Theme Time Radio Hour earlier this week as I gripped the wheel and stared alone into the distance during the evening rush hour. Dylan introduced a 1954 song by the Medallions, entitled 'The Letter', by extolling singer/songwriter Vernon Green's use of the invented words 'pizmotality' and 'puppetudes'. The song contains the lyric "Oh my darling, let me whisper/sweet words of pizmotality/and discuss the puppetutes of love". My little brain sizzled and snapped trying to put 2 and 2 together, and then I did remember that internet thingy.

As it turns out, Steve Miller's a student of musical history. In his song 'Enter Maurice', he turns the following phrase: "My dearest darling, come closer to Maurice/ so I can whisper sweet words of epistimology/in your ear and speak to you of the pompatus of love". 'Enter Maurice' (whaamp, whaaa) informed 'The Joker' (as did 'Space Cowboy' - seems Mr. Miller has a bit of a self-plagiarism issue. We've got that in common.)

Sure as the salmon flock to Capistrano, 'puppetutes' becomes 'pompatus' begets generations of confused music fans. And if I've saved even one of you from another day of feeling dumb when you hear 'The Joker', my humble pompatus to you. If you already knew everything I just typed, well, I never liked you all that much, anyway.

(All educational content gleaned from Wikipedia. Duh.)