According to music critic Oliver Trager, this song, along with others on the album, marked a departure for Dylan as he began to explore the possibilities of language and deeper levels of the human experience.

[1] Within a year of its release, the song was picked up as a single by folk rock act the Turtles[2] and country artist Johnny Cash (who sang it as a duet with his future wife June Carter).

Dylan's biographers generally agree that the song owes its inspiration to his former girlfriend Suze Rotolo.

After some description of the recording studio and booth exchanges among Dylan, his friends, and the session's producers, Hentoff describes the moment.

"Dylan," Hentoff writes, "went on to record a song about a man leaving a girl because he was not prepared to be the kind of invincible hero and all-encompassing provider she wanted."