It has been in use since the 15th century, derives from the Latin adjective pulcher, and while not exactly onomatopoeic, pertains, like the noun pulchritude, to physical beauty or ‘comeliness’.
The slightly unwieldy five-syllabled pulchritudinous is not a word you’d expect to crop up in song lyrics, but indeed it does, in the eccentrically humorous latter stages of the dance-funk number Chariots of the Gods (featuring Rockets) by Duck Sauce, the duo comprised of American DJ Armand Van Helden and Canadian DJ A-Trak (Alain Macklovitch) from their 2014 album Quack. The track features samples from Rockets’ 1977 track Space Rock, and UFO’s by Stanton F Friedman (1973). All hail to the duck:
In the beginning was the word
And the word was, 'duck'
And lo the word of 'duck' was 'quack'
The sound that replicates the sound of the grand opening
’Crack', of the primordial egg
And that ex ovo omnia epigenetic moment
In the Garden of Ened
A 'quack' sound that is echoless
To the ears of duck-less mysoginists
Un-attuned to the subtle acoustics of the 'duck' sound
Those ignorami whose minds have not been E-duck-ated in Duckology 101
And who are thus not acquainted with the teachings of duck
And more over, our pulchritudinous duck
Hears throughout the ether
The bial-rhythmnic beats of an electro-chemical fusion of
Techno, funky, vinyl scratching
That makes her tail feathers shake
That may well be the only example of pulchritudinous, but the related word for beauty, pulchritude, does indeed crop up in more than one song. Of any entirely different style, here’s the loungey, laidback jazz singing of Michael Franks, with Popsicle Toes (from The Art of Tea 1976), whose witty song is filled with amusing geographical innuendo:
You must have been Miss Pennsylvania
With all this pulchritude
How come you always load your Pentax
When I'm in the nude?
We oughta have a birthday party
And you can wear you birthday clothes
We can hit the floor
And go explore those
Popsicle toes
You got the nicest North America
This sailor ever saw
I'd like to feel your warm Brazil
And touch your Panama
But Your Tierra del Fuegos
Are nearly always froze
We gotta see saw
Until we unthaw those
Popsicle toes
Paul McCartney’s experimental, oddball side in the 70s and 80s is rarely explored, the rather cutting track Famous Groupies, done with Wings in the album London Town (1978) is worth checking out, especially in the outro:
Ladies and gentlemen, those magnificent examples of female pulchritude and luminosity, direct from their global perambulations to the very boards of this supremely magnificent proscenium arch. Ladies and gentlemen I give you, famous groupies!
But what defines pulchritude? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that. Louis Jordan and His Tympany 5 did a jazz number in which the larger form was one he preferred (he was never shy of an earthy lyric) though for balance, he did also record flipside song, You’re Much Too Fat And That’s That, though that could well have been self-parody. Anyway back to what he likes, and these words were originally part of the live intro, though a recording is hard to find of that full version:
You know I like being surrounded by such voluptuosity,
Such pulchritude, to be mothered and smothered,
Basted in sweet sumptuousness.
Let the cats all criticise,
Joke about my baby's size,
She's reet with me because you see,
I likes 'em fat like that.
If all this is sounding a little by 1970s and earlier sexist, let’s redress the balance a little. Beauty comes in all forms, and there are many songs about that of course, but to close, let’s have one from a beautiful performer herself, and a brilliant guitarist at that, St Vincent, whe parodies pulchritude in the song and video for Los Ageless, from her 2017 album Masseduction.
So then, just a playful pulchritudinous selection. Now feel free to share any further examples in songs, instrumentals, on albums, film, art or other contexts in comments below.
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