Songfacts®:

• This seven and a half minute grinding, riff-driven blues tune finds Dylan suffering with woman trouble. He scorns his unfaithful lady with such lines as, "You're an idiot, babe. It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe," only to hear a voice at song's end telling him, "Be gentle brother, be gentle and pray."
• The song's refrain of it being "a long road" and a "long and narrow way," is perhaps a reference to Jesus' teaching in his Sermon on the Mount concerning the narrow road that his followers travel on. Rather than going on the broad road that many go on, which leads to destruction, Jesus said the more difficult and unpopular way is the narrow one that leads to life.
• According to Will Hermes' review in Rolling Stone, the song borrows its chorus from the Mississippi Sheiks' 1934 blues "You'll Work Down to Me Someday."