Imagine: in its youth, known for insouciant itinerancy and elusive migratory habits (often involving festive gatherings of like-minded rodents in bars, coffeehouses and at outdoor music events and camps), the mighty squirrel knew no bounds.

Grown, the mighty squirrel seems to have enjoyed a highly developed domestic life, some even famously garnishing nests with gear, gin-jiggers and guitars, others pursuing advanced degrees in gibberish.

Had you seen or heard one, its omnivorous vocalizing, pulsating octavated strum-like breaths, not to mention its piercing cry (paleontologists suspect a unique resonator-like construction for the larynx featuring two vibrating bones, like violin bows) would have left an impression and no doubt pierced your heart.

Talmudic scholars make no mention of the mighty squirrel, though this should come as no surprise since neither rodents nor banjoes figure prominently in that great text.

Yet, two out of every three excavated mighty squirrel nests have been found to contain yarmulkes, mezuzahs, bagel crumbs and recordings of Naftule Brandwein.

 Quadrapeds they were not, nor fans of quadraphonic sound (or any form of quadraphelia, or large bushy tails, for that matter) though together they did form a quartet, and without quarreling settled on a form of music most accurately described as the quintessence of something curiously unlike anything else you’ve heard before.

 Under normal circumstances, such a union of like-minded musicians might well have gone unnoticed, perhaps unexplored, but nothing about the circumstances were, in fact, normal, and so, with hearty splashes of fermented rye and gin berries and other malted grains, a new style of mighty old World-Time music was unleashed.

“Immigrant music!” one of them declared.

“Reels and frailachs and horas and hoe-downs and lonesome songs about love-stricken animals, talking horses and cannibalism and frozen explorers and…and….”

 Realizing they would need a name, Rosenberg registered his affection for the rodent-derived old-time fiddle tune The Squirrel Hunters (which they had just finished hour three of playing together), to which Keenan replied, “Mighty Squirrel?”

 Elated, the band members agreed, joining together in impromptu singing chapter and verse of the great song from which that utterance did emerge…Tenbrooks said to Molly, ‘You’re looking mighty squirrel’ – Molly said to Tenbrooks, ‘I’m leaving this old world.

 Leaving this old world, leaving this old world... lonesomeness defined.