‘Purple Cow’ had quite a reign in 20th century America

One of my tennis buddies is also a fan of words and has done some writing (a column) in a prior life. We were discussing something — I can’t remember what now — and I mentioned that when I was in high school we had a drive-in named The Purple Cow.

I guess it may have been named after a popular soda concoction at the time.

In my teenage sense of humor, I dubbed the drive-in “The Heliotrope Heifer.”

Few of my friends understood but I explained it to them and they simply nodded and we slurped our drinks (none of which was a purple cow).

We’ll return to “Heliotrope” later.

“Purple Cow” is a short nonsense poem written by American writer Gelett Burgess, first published in 1895.

He wrote: “I never saw a purple cow / I never hope to see one; / But I can tell you, anyhow, / I’d rather see than be one.”

We don’t know what he might have been drinking at the moment of writing but it wasn’t the drink, which became popular in 1930.

Burgess had his own magazine so in his first issue of “The Lark” in May of 1895 he laid out his poem. It became his most widely known work.

It originally had a much longer title “The Purple Cow’s projected feast/ Reflections on a Mythic Beast/ Who’s Quite Remarkable, at Least.”

Burgess charged 5 cents for “The Lark” (not even a penny for each word in the poem’s title).

His publication of the poem featured his illustration, a cow jumping over an art nouveau fence heading toward a naked human, both the cow and human filled in black (apparently his magazine didn’t have color printing).

Honestly, I can’t understand his symbolism; maybe you can.

Well, despite his illustration — or maybe because of it his poem became popular.

One commentator even called it “the most quoted poem in twentieth-century America after ‘The Night Before Christmas.’” It was much shorter.

No good (?) deed goes unpunished and several years after its publication publicist Jim Moran showed up at Burgess’ home with a cow he had painted purple. I’m certain the poor creature was mortified but I don’t know what that looks like on a cow.

The poem became wearing on Burgess and he began to resent its popularity.

He retaliated with this short poem in his final issue of “The Lark” in April 1897:

“Ah, yes, I wrote the ‘Purple Cow’ — / I’m sorry now I wrote it; / But I can tell you Anyhow / I’ll Kill you if you quote it!”

No idle threat, but it was apparently a bluff. President Harry Truman was once asked by a UFO researcher and publisher if he’d ever seen a UFO. Harry replied by reciting lines from Burgess’ poem.

Seth Godin, an enterprising marketing consultant has used the phrase “Purple Cow” for the concept of marketing a product as “intrinsically different” in his book, “Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable.”

A “Purple Cow” has also been used for the marketing concept of choosing a name which “makes your audience stop in their tracks and wonder why the title was chosen.”

An example might be: “Banana Splints — You Won’t Slip in One of Ours.”

No, I just made that up but you get the idea.

I haven’t seen their mascot but a Purple Cow is the mascot of Williams College, a private liberal arts (it would have to be) college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The college’s humor magazine is the “Purple Cow,” which borrowed its name from Burgess’ poem.

One of the recipes for the drink in August of 1930 in Memphis was taken from the root beer float concept. It was simply vanilla ice cream floated in grape soda.

An adult version of the drink is to toss in a jigger of vodka with the grape soda and ice cream — I am not recommending this.