Hotter 'n a pepper sprout

When I was kid in the "old country", I recall the Johnny Cash & June Carter duet Jackson was huge. Somehow I can even picture my grandmother in the same room as we listened to it.

Then, some months ago, Mrs Llew got the Johnny Cash bug & returned home with the Walk the Line movie soundtrack.

And so I was reacquainted with the song Jackson, but this time rendered by Joaquim Phoenix & Reese Witherspoon.

And then on Friday, Mrs Llew secured the newly released DVD & we watched the movie, which includes (part of) two performances of the song.

And it struck me that until the first viewing I had no idea what the words to the song were, beyond just the vaguest outline...

"We got married in a fever,
Hotter 'n a pepper sprout."

A "pepper sprout"...?

Now, when I was a kid in the frozen, sunless wasteland that was the "old country", I think I could be forgiven for not recognising the term "pepper sprout". I mean, I'd heard of Brussels sprouts. But chances are I'd have been baffled at a reference to anything being hotter 'n a brussels sprout". Because most things are, let's face it.

So I'm guessing a pepper sprout is pretty damned hot. And that we're refering to some kind of chilli pepper here. Jalapeno or something even hotter!

So here's the point. Such as it is.

Remember in the 1980s there used to be an advertisement for... for.... possibly Oil of Ulay (you don't see this so much - did ulays become extinct?), or it could have been Nivea.

Anyway, there were two young guys in some tropical setting, they're looking around, suddenly they spot a pretty young looking woman & one of them says "Hot sata"

And I used to agree, she was pretty "Hot sata". And in fact, the term "Hot sata" came to mean just that, anything that we deemed hotter 'n a pepper sprout. But I think you'll agree, times have changed, and it'd have been pretty odd if these guys spotted a hottie in some tropical place & described her as hotter 'n a pepper sprout.

Although down Jackson way, that might still have some relevance. Who knows?

Anyway, again, the crux of the Oil of dead Ulays ad, was that the second guy checked out the hot sata, and replied "No, too young."

But actually, she wasn't as young as she seemed, and she was indeed the hot sata they were looking for. The point of the advertisement was that this hot woman was being kept preternaturally young looking by anointing herself (shown in quick cut flashback) with oil rendered from endangered species. Or something.

But that's not the point of this post, I mean, after adopting the term "hot sata" and using it liberally, I was kind of dismayed many years later, when they updated the ad to resemble a scene from Top Gun, with hot, flight instructor woman (played by one of the Mad Max 2 actresses), being spied by two pilot goons, and one turrns to the other & says,

"Perhaps that's her"

Not "Hot sata" at all.

I felt cheated.