Hinge Joints that Don't Limit?

Hi, all!

I have a head attached to a ver long neck, and the neck segments are all connected hinge joints. The head is controlled with physics.

My goal is to have the head be freely and pretty painlessly controllable, while the neck sort of weightlessly follows like a streamer and connects to the body, and really only affects the head when the player steers the head too far (The neck is of limited length). So It's pretty much a rope. How would I achieve this? It seems like the hinge joints affect the movement of the head greatly.

Thanks all! - YA