The subject of the song is the arrival of the mighty Quinn (an eskimo), who changes despair into joy and chaos into rest, and attracts attention from the animals. The metaphorical lyrics have prompted suggestions that Quinn is a drug dealer or simply a village elder. Dylan himself has said that the title character refers to actor Anthony Quinn's role as an Eskimo in the 1959 movie The Savage Innocents. Dylan has also been quoted as saying that the song was nothing more than a "simple nursery rhyme".
More recently, Dylan in his autobiography Chronicles Volume One (published 2004), makes further reference to the song: "On the way back to the house I passed the local movie theater on Prytania Street, where The Mighty Quinn (film) was showing. Years earlier I had written a song called "The Mighty Quinn" which was a hit in England, and I wondered what the movie was about. Eventually I'd sneak off and go there to see it. It was a mystery, suspense, Jamaican thriller with Denzel Washington as the Mighty Xavier Quinn a detective who solves crimes. Funny, that's just the way I imagined him when I wrote the song The Mighty Quinn, Denzel Washington".
