[Dylan] leaves you dangling at the end of each bridge, lets the band punctuate the trail of words he's squeezed into his lines, which gives it a reluctant soft-shoe charm".
They praise the interpretation of the band as "excellent...including two exquisite and subtle guitar parts by [Charlie] Sexton and [Larry] Campbell, and also [Tony] Garnier's upright bass, which he plays with a bow at the end of the song".
[7] Thomas Ward at AllMusic referred to it as "a masterpiece of the writer's lyrical phrasing", noting how one "plays the song over and over but still can't quite fathom how Dylan gets all those syllables in, with such deftness.
In an article accompanying the list, critic Ian Maxton calls the song "jaunty, even as death and violence lurk" and claims that it sounds, "for the first time in a decade or more, like the sound of a man having fun – cracking jokes, playing tricky literary games and calling on the pre-rock tunes of his youth to set the atmosphere just right".
[17] The live debut occurred at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan on November 6, 2001 and the last performance (to date) took place at Patinoire Meriadeck in Bordeaux, France on June 29, 2010.