MANFRED MANN – "Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)"

You just *had* to work “freewheeling” in there, dincha.

I would guess at the time a lot of people tried to ‘work it out’ – Dylan had been a recluse for over a year, so dispatches from him were hardly common. The Wikipedia page for the song touches on a couple of possible ‘explanations’ before owning up to the Anthony Quinn connection.

I too recall this as a child friendly hit. Just like Ha Ha Said The Clown before it and My Name Is Jack after it the Mann seem to have stumbled upon a rich seam of mildly psychedelic nursery rhymes with flute to the fore (a later element of prog). Soon to be ‘enhanced’ and extended instrumentally by the Earthband (I think Blinded By The Light is just as good if not better). Bring back nonsense lyrics !

Hey there! See what happens when I go away for six weeks! The new site is fabulous, and it looks as if I have a lot to catch up on. I’ll try to make some responses in the coming days.

I like the added visuals. I’d never have made the connection regarding “Quinn”–I’m surprised I’d never heard of this film as my family rather liked that sort of thing–otherwise.

I’m trying to recall if I ever heard anyone claim any sort of meaning for this song–can’t recall ever figuring it out. (I thought the line was “everybody’s gonna wanta doze”–guess I was quite innocent then, really.) But it was great fun, and one of my favorite Manfreds recordings before the Earthband era, which I think, in retrospect, was really the best period for the band–even if few of the originals remained by then.

Looking back at the psychedelic era now, I think the lack of any determinate meaning was part of the appeal–and how many of us who spent hours trying to impose some sort of meaning on these lyrics didn’t end up studying literature at the university as a result. And now the middle-aged English professor (c’est moi) looks at these lyrics and thinks it really doesn’t matter–in this case, that heavy-handed thing called meaning was probably beside the point all along.

‘ There she was just talking to her peeps”

singing…..

Susan Songtag? Indeed! I verily believe this is the first time SHE has been mentioned on this blog. (I’m afraid I had too large a “dose” of Susan Sontag thanks to an ex-lover who worshiped her.) By and large, I’m entirely in favour of interpretation–the more the merrier. We can all interpret this song as much and in as many ways as we want, and we’ll never find the meaning. (Bet Dylan can’t remember what it means.) And that is all well and good, because we can just keep on interpreting it all over again and contradict ourselves if we want to and that’s the joy of interpretation for interpretation’s sake. WOO-HOO!

My latest interpretation of the song is that it really is about that Anthony Quinn film after all.

Which is, perhaps, the reason for building all those ships and boats. A good way to leave those Arctic climes behind.

yeah the nicholas ray credit jumped out at me too – this + that jacket on freewheelin = dylan clearly a ray fan

um, obviously quinn is an ESKIMO!

Did Manfred Mann release Quinn the eskimo on an album or just on 45?

But guarding fumes and making haste

You’re almost certainly taking the piss with this one, and if so I applaud that – but just in case there’s any confusion, the line is “But jumping queues…”

I wonder if The Manfred Mann has done a different
version to US market? More like a bubblegum version.
I have heard this version, and I`m positive that it
is made by The Manfred Mann, but I haven`t found that
version from their `Best of` – collections.
Anybody knows about this?

Does anybody know about the BBC `Top of The Pops` radio show version
of `The Mighty Quinn` made by The Manfred Mann? I have heard it, it
is the best, but I `haven`t found out how to get it.

I wish it had been Lady Madonna, but this was the number 1 when I was born. It’s never seemed to me one of Dylan’s better songs, coldly riddling, rather than allusive and mercurial. He could write these songs in minutes and, if you listen to the most extended bootlegs of the Basement Tapes, he did.

Listening to this the other day made me wonder if it was bob trying to do something like Yellow Submarine – a jaunty shaggy dog story (as Tom quite rightly calls it) I remember singing along to both songs as a child – and not worrying what the lyrics meant. I still don’t care.

According to Wikipedia Inuits are a subset of Eskimos, so no need to worry Waldo

Another hit that caught the imagination of the terraces – Leicester City fans adapted it in tribute to Mike Stringfellow, ‘the Mighty String’.

Critic watch:

1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die, and 10,001 You Must Download (2010)
Bruce Pollock (USA) – The 7,500 Most Important Songs of 1944-2000 (2005)
Dave Marsh & Kevin Stein (USA) – The 40 Best of the Top 40 Singles by Year (1981) 18
Dave Marsh (USA) – The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made (1989) 721
Giannis Petridis (Greece) – 2004 of the Best Songs of the Century (2003)

Flahr: I’m late to the party here (I’ve spent most of the last week either in the belly of an armadillo, stripping a drunken willow or catching up on sleep) but Mr Tambourine Man would be the place, surely?