Template:Short description Vernon Green (May 1, 1937 – December 24, 2000) was the American leader of the rhythm and blues band The Medallions. He wrote the 1954 song "The Letter", which contained the nonsense lyric "the puppetutes of love." According to an interview with Green, 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."<ref>In Steve Miller's "The Joker," what is "the pompatus of love", The Straight Dope, October 25, 1996</ref>
Green died on December 24, 2000, in Los Angeles, California, from complications of a stroke he suffered earlier that year.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>