Got the amen corner here

[ironman2012]

Hi,
OBAMA: ... (speech)
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Amen.
OBAMA: Amen. Amen.
(APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: Got the amen corner here. (Singing) Well...

(This comes from npr.org: Obama Signs Order To Protect Against Anti-LGBT Bias on July 21, 2014.)

1. The blue part looks incomplete. Is its subject "I"? That is, 'I got the amen corner here'.

2. Can I understand this part in this way: Obama said the audience is agreeing with him in a humorous way by saying 'Amen. Amen' on behalf of the audience. This 'Amen. Amen' is expected to be said by the audience.

3. Do people usually sing something like 'well...' after saying 'Amen'?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Egmont]

In some churches, the "amen corner" is an area occupied by members of the congregation whose responses to prayer are especially fervent. They may lead the responses of the rest of the congregation. By extension, the term is often used to describe a group of people who react enthusiastically to a non-religious speaker.

 

[Cenzontle]

1. The missing word before "Got" could be "I've" or "We've". The speaker himself may not even know which of these he has omitted.
2. In some traditional African-American churches, some members of the congregation have a custom of responding with "Amen!"
not only to prayer, but to individual statements in a sermon.
The same kind of response might be used occasionally by listeners to a political speech,
or even by an individual in a conversation, to mean "I strongly agree".
But even in these cases it is recognized as something that is taken from the church environment.
So when Obama heard "Amen", it reminded him of the church setting, and evidently he improvised his quip about "the amen corner".
There is no expectation that a political audience will necessarily say "Amen".
3. No. Singing "Well..." after "Amen" was unique to that speech by Obama. I haven't heard that speech, so I can only conjecture
that he suddenly pretended to be a preacher in church, with a humorous intention.
I can guess that a musical "Well..." might have been the first word of a hymn in church,
or Obama might have been imitating the musical speech used by a traditional African-American preacher in preaching a sermon.

 

[ironman2012]

In some churches, the "amen corner" is an area occupied by members of the congregation whose responses to prayer are especially fervent. They may lead the responses of the rest of the congregation. By extension, the term is often used to describe a group of people who react enthusiastically to a non-religious speaker.

Thanks! But why does Obama say 'Amen. Amen.'? Should the audience say it?

 

[ironman2012]

1. The missing word before "Got" could be "I've" or "We've". The speaker himself may not even know which of these he has omitted.
2. In some traditional African-American churches, some members of the congregation have a custom of responding with "Amen!"
not only to prayer, but to individual statements in a sermon.
The same kind of response might be used occasionally by listeners to a political speech,
or even by an individual in a conversation, to mean "I strongly agree".
But even in these cases it is recognized as something that is taken from the church environment.
So when Obama heard "Amen", it reminded him of the church setting, and evidently he improvised his quip about "the amen corner".
There is no expectation that a political audience will necessarily say "Amen".
3. No. Singing "Well..." after "Amen" was unique to that speech by Obama. I haven't heard that speech, so I can only conjecture
that he suddenly pretended to be a preacher in church, with a humorous intention.
I can guess that a musical "Well..." might have been the first word of a hymn in church,
or Obama might have been imitating the musical speech used by a traditional African-American preacher in preaching a sermon.

Thank you! But I still have one question: what does 'got' mean in 'Got the amen corner here'? Does it mean: 'here is Amen'? Or 'I hear someboy say Amen'?

 

[Parla]

I just watched the video. The President said "Amen" first, at least as picked up in the recording I heard, then he turn to his right and said "Got the amen corner here", probably because some other people in that part of the room also said "Amen."* He said "Amen", by the way, to his own statement wishing that the House of Representative would take action on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) which would extend protection to all employees. (The Executive Order he signed applies only to federal government employees and employees of firms contracting with the government.) I'm not sure what the "Well . . . " meant, but he was still looking in the same direction, toward the people on his right, when he said it.

*There were some shots that showed the entire room, a big room with a very large crowd, so voices from the side of the room may not have been picked up by President Obama's mike.

 

[Cenzontle]

I just now listened to the audio recording.
Unlike Parla, I heard the first "Amen!" from someone in the audience (at 1:38 in the recording).
This is in response to Obama's saying that people should urge their representatives in congress to pass "legislation that resolves this problem once and for all."
A few decades ago, a political activist in the audience might have shouted "Right on!" with the same function, to express strong agreement.
Obama hears it and echoes it: "Amen!"
Immediately there is a rustle of (perhaps) suppressed laughter and the beginning of applause.
Why laughter? Explaining humor interculturally can be a tricky task, and I won't attempt it here.
Suffice it to say that people were enjoying the balancing act between the political world and the religious world.
Obama—with his skill as a public speaker, and listener—hears the audience reaction and senses that "Amen" is an effective word with this audience,
so he repeats, with more feeling, "Amen!!" (Note my punctuation. NPR's punctuation of "Amen. Amen." is inadequate.)
The applause continues. Now he makes the connection with the church world explicitly: "Got the 'amen' corner here."
(Dropping the subject pronoun—I? we? you?—and the auxiliary verb "have" is a signal that he has shifted into informal style.)
As he says the word "corner" you can hear a hint of suppressed laughter in his voice, almost falsetto.
Churchgoers—especially African-American churchgoers—understand what the "amen corner" is:
a part of the church where the enthusiastic listeners tend to sit, listeners who shout "Amen!" during the sermon.
Realizing that the church theme—discovered accidentally in the moment—is ingratiating him with this audience, Obama decides to "ride it" for one more step:
He intones "Well...", on a constant musical tone, with a slight tremolo in his voice.
Very subtle, Mr. President! He realizes that this "simple" utterance is sufficient to conjure up the image of a traditional African-American preacher.
In my opinion this is not the first word of any song.
Instead, he is imitating the way that a traditional black preacher pauses and introduces the next statement in a sermon.
To understand what I mean about the melodic delivery of a traditional black preacher's voice,
perhaps you can find YouTubes of preachers such as Jeremiah Wright (Obama's pastor) or, hey, Martin Luther King.
The lesson for us all is that a good public speaker listens to the audience and knows when to set aside his prepared text and "converse" with them.