Bob Dylan / 5:03
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar, harmonica
Robbie Robertson: guitar
Wayne Moss: guitar (?)
Charlie McCoy: guitar (?)
Joe South: guitar (?)
Al Kooper: electric piano (?)
Hargus Robbins: piano
Henry Strzelecki: bass
Kenneth Buttrey: drums
Recording Studio
Columbia Recording Studios, Nashville: March 9, 1966
Technical Team
Producer: Bob Johnston
In this song the narrator has been rejected by a girlfriend who has taken up with another man, a man with a thousand virtues. Bob Dylan turns it into an account of inner turmoil, which is the theme of the entire album Blonde on Blonde. “Well, I rush into your hallway / Lean against your velvet door / I watch upon your scorpion / Who crawls across your circus floor.” The image of “your hallway,” noted Dylan scholar Michael Gray explains, “suggests a place of potential refuge, and so raises again the fact of there being a gulf between narrator and outside world.”30 In the second verse of the song, Dylan introduces Achilles as the protector of the narrator’s unfaithful mistress: “How come you send someone out to have me barred?” Dylan may be referring to Homer’s Iliad, an ancient Greek epic poem. Achilles, according to the legend, was dipped into the River Styx as a baby and was made invulnerable everywhere except on his heel. An “Achilles heel” has, therefore, become a metaphor for vulnerability.
“Temporary Like Achilles” was born from the ashes of “Medicine Sunday,” an outtake recorded in New York with the Band on October 5, 1965. The refrain “You know I want your lovin’ / Honey, but you’re so hard” was taken from “Medicine Sunday,” but the comparison stops there. While “Medicine Sunday” has the imprint of Highway 61 Revisited, “Temporary Like Achilles” has the mark of Nashville. This nonchalant boogie is reminiscent of Fats Domino’s rhythmic “Blueberry Hill.” This slow blues song is highlighted by Hargus Robbins’s excellent piano part, bringing a New Orleans tone to the song. Drums played with brushes and bass guitar bring the necessary groove to the piece. No less than three guitars are at work, one of which backs the harmonic piano part. With a very reverberant sound and a pronounced vibrato, the sound is quite similar to that of an electric piano. It is difficult to identify the player, perhaps Al Kooper.
Bob Dylan introduced bridges in the structure of some of his songs on this album. The bridge in “Temporary Like Achilles” escapes from the piece’s harmonic logic by providing a color “pop.” Is this the influence of the British Invasion? The final take was recorded during the second marathon session on March 9 between 9 p.m. and midnight.