Bob Dylan / 4:53
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar, harmonica
Charlie McCoy: guitar
Joe South: guitar
Wayne Moss: guitar
Al Kooper: organ
Hargus Robbins: piano
Henry Strzelecki: bass
Kenneth Buttrey: drums
Recording Studio
Columbia Recording Studios, Nashville: March 8, 1966
Technical Team
Producer: Bob Johnston
According to the album notes for Dylan’s compilation Biograph, he claimed that he wrote the lyrics for “Just Like a Woman” in Kansas City on Thanksgiving night, November 25, 1965, while on tour with the Hawks.12 They performed in Chicago on November 26. This suggests that the song was written or at least completed in Nashville a few months later, just before or during the recording session on March 8, 1966. Other than the first verse, the lyric sheet does not have the entire text. Historian Sean Wilentz said that in listening to the original Nashville tapes “[t]he lyrics, once again, needed work; on several early takes, Dylan sang disconnected lines and semi-gibberish.”68 In all likelihood, Dylan completed the song in his Nashville hotel room, as he often did during the sessions for Blonde on Blonde, while Al Kooper played the melody at the piano. If he did not finish “Just Like a Woman” in Nashville, the chorus and the bridge were added at the last minute in the studio, which would confirm Wilentz’s statement.
“She makes love just like a woman, yes, she does / And she aches just like a woman / But she breaks just like a little girl.” Who was Bob Dylan thinking about when he wrote and sang these words? Rumors are that “Just Like a Woman” is about Dylan’s relationship with Joan Baez, but their breakup took place during the UK tour in spring 1965. Edie Sedgwick, Dylan’s muse before she moved on to Andy Warhol, is a more likely candidate. Connected to Warhol’s Factory since 1965, Edie met Bob at the Chelsea Hotel, where she lived at the time, and soon fell under the charms of the songwriter. Their alleged relationship ended after a few months, when Warhol told Edie that Dylan had married Sara.
Whether or not addressed to Edie Sedgwick, the lyrics of “Just Like a Woman” resulted in an outcry among feminists. In the New York Times on March 14, 1971, Marion Meade, a novelist and an influential figure in the women’s liberation movement, wrote, “There’s no more complete catalogue of sexist slurs,” and stated that Dylan “defines women’s natural traits as greed, hypocrisy, whining and hysteria.”4 This is obviously something quite different. Feminists did not understand Dylan’s true message. Phrases such as “But lately I see her ribbons and her bows / Have fallen from her curls” and “Till she sees finally that she’s like all the rest / With her fog, her amphetamine and her pearls” are two metaphors on the transition from adolescence to adulthood, on innocence lost forever. There is no misogyny, only a beautiful poem about the failure of a relationship.
From a musical standpoint, “Just Like a Woman” is probably the most commercial track on Blonde on Blonde. At a conference on March 2012 at Belmont University in Nashville, Al Kooper said you had to listen to it at 4 a.m., probably the time when it was recorded. The harmonic grid is both simple and sophisticated, as are the lyrics. Dylan has that gift of making his words and his music immediately identifiable by strong and indelible images. To underscore the force of the song, he obtained subtle arrangements from his band, making “Just Like a Woman” a classic in his repertoire. His two harmonica parts in E in the introduction and the conclusion are excellent, stretching out almost until after the last chorus. Two classical guitars back Dylan: one is probably McCoy on guitar solo throughout the song, distinguishing himself at each break in a phrase to the delight of his fans. The second is played in arpeggio (by South or Moss?), doubled by Robbins on piano. Kooper delivers a superb organ part as required by the solo guitar, adding some color to the piece. Dylan’s accompaniment includes two other acoustic guitars, one played by Dylan himself.
“Just Like a Woman” also owes its success to the excellent rhythm section, with Strzelecki on bass and Buttrey on drums. Dylan provides a superb vocal, giving the song its full breadth, maturity, and emotional expression, showing his immense talent as a performer at the age of twenty-four. One of two takes from March 8, 1966, was chosen for the album and the single, released in August 1966. The single features “Obviously Five Believers” as a B-side, and reached number 33 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Bob Dylan performed “Just Like a Woman” live onstage for the first time on April 13, 1966, in Sydney, Australia. Since then, he has performed it nearly nine hundred times. There are several live versions, The Bootleg Series Volume 4: Live 1966: The “Royal Albert Hall” Concert (1966), The Concert for Bangladesh (1971), Before the Flood (1974), At Budokan (1979), and The Bootleg Series Volume 5: Live 1975: The Rolling Thunder Revue (2002).