[charlene]

DQ - I found this from april 2005:
A couple of things before we start:
1) GL mentioned Don Quixote in a prior song, the wonderful "If I Could" ("If I could stand like the rusty old man in his armor;/if I could ride the steed that he rode in his time;/I would turn his head away to the river/and let him wander through the meadow grass/wild and free (note the same phrasing in the later song)/for everyone to see." Obviously, what GL sees in the character is not just a crazy person who can't distinguish reality from fantasy. More about that later.
2) I'm not much of a fan of Man of La Mancha, although I have to admit "The Impossible Dream" is a memorable song. If you don't want to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the publication of the book by actually reading it (it's about 1000 pages in two parts), there is a recent movie version starring John Lithgow that is quite faithful to the book. I was pleasantly surprised by it, and even use it in my classes when I teach the novel.

If you want some information and maybe a little analysis for your paper:

The novel actually started as a parody of books of chivalry, which were about as distanced from reality, and therefore as popular as an escapist activity as soap operas, romance novels, WWF wrestling and cruising the Internet to find true love would be today. The main character, a previously quiet 50-ish bachelor, goes crazy from reading too many of these books of chivalry ("novelas de caballeri'as), and begins to believe that not only is a he a famous knight, but that his mission is to restore the ideals and rules of knight-errantry to a land that has forgotten them (conveniently forgetting that they never truly existed in practice in the first place).
As for his being crazy, his is a very particular brand of lunacy, for he is a wise, thoughtful, literate and knowledgeable man on any theme except that of knight-errantry. He leaves people perplexed and asking if he is the craziest sane person or the sanest crazy person ("el cuerdo ma's loco o el loco ma's cuerdo") in the world. This duality between reality and madness, sometimes between reality and fantasy, or idealism and realism, is perhaps the most notable theme in the novel. The reader constantly shifts between admiration for DQ's ideals--helping the poor and the defenseless, loyalty in love, defending the faith--and embarrassment at his true impotence, and even the occasional harm that he causes, as he tries to realize his goals. We also feel the ambiguity of the guilty pleasures of laughing at this crazy man (how can one laugh at the follies of the crazed--isn't this insensitive?) as he gets himself into one mess after another, and yet also, increasingly as the book advances, especially in the 2nd part, angry at those who deliberately trick him and play him for the fool. We start to ask who is crazier--someone who can't see reality, or someone who takes advantage of such a poor soul to make sport of him.

Duality and ambiguity are again part of other aspects of novel. His squire, Sancho Panza, a poor campesino, or peasant, sees windmills where DQ sees giants, and prostitutes where his master sees refined ladies. However, by the end of the second part, it is SP, and not DQ, who wishes to go on one more sally, who wants to continue the adventures, when DQ, now back to being his former self, Alonso Quijano, advises his friends that "no hay pa'jaros en el nido de anta~no" ("there are no birds in last year's nest").
The love of his life, "Dulcinea del Toboso", is in reality a pig-herder ("the best hand at salting pork" in the area!). In his folly, he transforms this coarse woman into the woman of his ideal, the one he fights for and to whom he dedicates all his victories. Again, we laugh, but we also think: what man does not look upon the love of his life and think that he possesses the most beautiful woman in the world? What matters more--what other people think of as objective reality, or what we believe is true?

There's sooooo much more to the book, but again I've been long-winded. What the relationship to the song is, well...
I would say that GL's song is also open to multiple interpretations, but that much of the spirit of the book is present (perhaps a bit too idealizing of DQ, but that's how he was mostly seen in the early 1970s. I don't have the time to go through the song line by line, but here are some of my general ideas:
In the song, DQ is portrayed somewhat ambiguously as well. He tries to right the wrongs that have been part of societies only forever (see the litany that starts with "See the jailor with his key who locks away all trace of sin"--who is crazier, someone who "shouts across the ocean to the shore", or someone who believes that the only people who have sinned are the ones behind bars?), and continuing to the present time ("see the youth in ghetto black condemned to life upon the street"). Of course, armed only with a "battered book" (could be a book of chivalry, could be a Bible), a "rusty sword" such as the one he used so ineffectively in the novel, ("rusty", perhaps because crusaders for justice are so few and far betweeen) and a "tarnished cross" (a religion that has been falsified and misused)--how can one person expect to make any headway against the injustices of life? He "shouts across the ocean to the shore 'til he can shout no more"--a futile effort, taking all of his strenghts, and later on goes "in vain to search again/where no one will hear." (Of course, if he were to shout from Spain across the ocean, the shore would be North America--perhaps a subtle jab at the social injustices of our society). All in all the definition of a quixotic pursuit: spend all your energy and resources in an fight against vastly superior forces, in a vain attempt to change the world.
Crazy, yes? Yes, but...is not it crazier to live in a society and give in to its corruption, injustice and insensitivity without a fight? To scrap all of our morals and beliefs in goodness to take part in a system that treats the underclasses as if they were less than human (the poor "who wake to find the table bare", that lets the rich be indifferent to suffering ("See the gentry in the country/ riding off to take the air")? Is it not crazier to see one's fellow man be downtrodden and not attempt to do anything about it, even if it means that we might take a licking as well? Is it wrong to love purely even though the rest of the world thinks of love as this week's bed partner?

I've gone on 'way too long. If anyone has made it to the end of this third part of the novel, and wants, God knows why, any more information, let me know.