"I Really Love Your Peaches ..." (Oh Wait, Wrong Verse)

I've been faithfully reading my copy of the Da Capo book. A few nights ago, I read the piece by Greil Marcus about Walter Mosely and Los Angeles doo-wop of the fifties. Marcus clears up a mystery that has haunted me (and likely millions of classic rock fans) for decades: What in the world is that word Steve Miller sings in "The Joker"?

Marcus tells of an L.A. doo-wop band called the Medallions, whose lead singer was a 16-year old by the name of Vernon Green. In 1954, they had a song called "The Letter", which contained the words:

"And to kiss, and love--and then have to wait ... Oh! my darling. Let me whisper, sweet words of dismortality--and discuss the pompatus of love. Put it together, and what do you have? Matrimony!"

Vernon Green has been asked to explain what "pompatus" is (by none other than actor Jon Cryer, who made a movie titled Pompatus of Love), he has said it is "a secret paper-doll fantasy figure who would be my everything and bear my children." Marcus writes that the word is in the Oxford dictionary, it means: "to act with pomp and splendor." Marcus later links this to Miller:

Nearly 20 years later, in 1972, Steve Miller took the phrase pompatus of love and put it in his "Enter Maurice"; the next year he highlighted the weird phrase in his number one hit "The Joker."

Ah, yes. Homer Simpson couldn't have explained it any better himself.