The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #19152   Message #194095
Posted By: Ebbie
13-Mar-00 - 12:21 AM
Thread Name: The Amish and Folk Music
Subject: RE: BS: The Amish and Folk Music
I'm no expert in current Amish experiences- though I have a thousand Amish relatives- but I've not heard of any witness protection program involving Amish, TTCM. Unless you're thinking of the movie, Witness? Fun movie but total farce- ALL Amish speak the dialect, for instance, so the opening premise was not possible.

As for an oral tradition of music, they have a number of songs they sing, mostly novelty songs that are spoofs of family relationships or- I remember one about a little boy who thought he was a pretty cool kid and his travails. The problem is that they are all in dialect!

I feel the greatest strength of the Amish is their sense of fun- I don't know any that don't love to laugh. My father to the end of his life kept clippings in his shirt pocket that he'd whip out at every conceivable moment. I think humor was the strongest bond my parents possessed: my father loved to make people laugh and my mother loved to laugh.