Everybody's building ships & boats, Everybody's in despair, Everybody's 'neath the trees, Nobody can get no sleep

One night when he was on tour Bob Dylan turned on the TV in his motel room after a show and saw a movie called "The Savage Innocents" (1959) starring Anthony Quinn as an Eskimo (really an Inuit) whom a Canadian Mountie (Peter O'Toole) arrests on a murder charge and tries to bring back to civilization. Dylan thought it was such a great movie he immediately wrote a song about its hero,

Quinn the Eskimo /
The Mighty Quinn

by Bob Dylan

Ev'rybody's building the big ships and the boats
Some are building monuments
Others jotting down notes
Ev'rybody's in despair
Ev'ry girl and boy
But when Quinn the Eskimo gets here
Ev'rybody's gonna jump for joy

Come all without, come all within
You'll not see nothing like The Mighty Quinn

I like to do just like the rest
I like my sugar sweet
But guarding fumes and making haste
It ain't my cup of meat
Ev'rybody's 'neath the trees
Feeding pigeons on a limb
But when Quinn the Eskimo gets here
All the pigeons gonna run to him

Come all without, come all within
You'll not see nothing like The Mighty Quinn

A cat's meow and a cow's moo
I can recite 'em all
Just tell me where it hurts yuh, honey
And I'll tell you who to call
Nobody can get no sleep
There's someone on ev'ryone's toes
But when Quinn the Eskimo gets here
Ev'rybody's gonna wanna doze

Come all without, come all within
You'll not see nothing like The Mighty Quinn

Copyright © Bob Dylan