A character identified as Tom Paine then appears, "command[s] her to yield," and apologizes to the narrator for the woman's actions.
However, it is also likely that this song references the prestigious Tom Paine Award that Dylan received in 1963 from the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee.
Dylan delivered an acceptance speech and was booed and rushed from the stage when he claimed to have empathy for some of Lee Harvey Oswald's feelings.
[4] In their book Bob Dylan All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track, authors Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon praise Dylan's vocal performance for "expressing a new maturity" not found in his earlier recordings and note that it is also "one of the first times he sings with vibrato".
[5] The song bears a resemblance to, and is perhaps influenced by, the W. H. Auden poem As I Walked Out One Evening, including sharing the same iambic meter and quatrain form.