re: GG: Wagner/Mitch/F & T

[Tim Conway <timcon@comswest.net.au>]

Hello Marco,

>When I was young, exactly the same joke you cite was very common in Italy
>too (and perhaps it still is).
>One is left wondering about "global culture"; in fact, this phenomenon,
>apparently so modern, has far reaching roots.   One of my favourite
>examples is the diffusion of folk songs, similar both in melody and in
>subject, in widely different areas: for example, "Lord Randall", reported
>in Child's collection, is well known, under the title "Barun Litrun",  not
>only - quite obviously - in Scotland, England and North America, but also
>in Piedmonte  (Northern Italy) where it can be traced to at least the XVIII
>century.
>Very probably a "footprint" of mercenary troops.

I'm no expert in this sort of thing but it does occur to me that the bike 
is coincidental to the joke. If you substitute 'horse' and make a few 
other minor adjustments it is easy to imagine the joke being extremely 
old, possibly several millennia. The only thing that confines it to north 
America and parts of the British Isles is the use of 'Ma'. I assume the 
Italian version used 'Mama'.

WRT the spreading of music and 'global culture', you and the list might 
be interested to know that the Brunei national anthem's first few bars 
are remarkably like the first few bars of Mozart's clarinet quintet (I 
hope he wrote only one). Or is it the clarinet concerto? Whatever, it's 
time to dust off that old fillum script that was constantly rejected and 
resubmit it as 'Mozart's Lost Years: Pacifying The Headhunters Of Borneo' 
:-)

Tim
<timcon@comswest.net.au>
Broome, Western Australia