Girls and Cars and Jive Talkin'
(15 downloads)Thursday, Feb 07, 2008
The ballad, “The Letter” is the flip side for the Medallions initial offering “Buick 59”, and it was a moderate R&B hit in its own right. This coupling of a love ballad backing a tune about fast cars also laid down a formula which the Medallions would use indiscriminately in their future releases as we will see later with “Speedin’” & “Edna” or “Coupe De Ville Baby” & “The Telegram”. This, of course, is the oldest formula in the Rock n’ Roll play book, and it should come as no surprise that it worked like gangbusters. This tune is also notable for the nonsense line “the pulpitudes of love” which was interpreted by rock star Steve Miller as “the pompitudes of love” in his 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 pompitudes of love.”
Medallions vocalist and song writer, Vernon Green, manages to muster an additional neologism in this tune when speaks of “sweet words of pizmotality”.
DooTone 347, 1954