The Joker

[DOUBRIS]

What does 'the pompatus of love' mean in Steve Miller's song 'The Joker'?

[andy hughes]

A 'pompatus' is a soft doll or soft-bodied puppet. I'm not sure where Steve Miller found the word - it doesn't appear in most dictionaries, but we at The Answerbank specialise in knowing this kind of phrase, and we are delighted to share it with our visitors.

[Larabell]

There's no such real word, but it is a corruption of another made-up word in a 1954 song called "The Letter" by Vernon Green of the R&B band, The Medallions. Vernon said puppetutes was :"A term I coined to mean a secret paper-doll fantasy figure [thus puppet], who would be my everything and bear my children." The old song is scrathy, but soulful and Miller mis-heard puppetutes as pompatous. Actually, there's an American film called "Pompatous of Love" in which this line is a puzzle for the main character.