Which song did Bob Dylan write on Thanksgiving after declining a dinner invitation?

Bob Dylan wrote “Just Like a Woman” on Thanksgiving after declining a dinner invitation. He later said he composed the song in Kansas City on Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1965, while touring.

The song became one of Dylan’s best-known compositions and appeared on his 1966 double album Blonde on Blonde. Dylan recorded it in March 1966 at Columbia’s Studio A in Nashville, with Bob Johnston producing. Its lyrics describe emotional hurt, romantic conflict, and a complicated relationship, while repeatedly returning to the phrase “just like a woman.”

There is an important wrinkle: historian Sean Wilentz argued that studio tapes suggest Dylan improvised much of the lyric during the Nashville recording sessions, rather than writing the complete song in Kansas City on Thanksgiving. Other researchers have examined drafts and songwriting documents, so the exact composition process remains debated. Nevertheless, “Just Like a Woman” is the canonical answer to this Thanksgiving anecdote.

The song is sometimes confused with Dylan’s other 1965 classics, including “Like a Rolling Stone” and “Ballad of a Thin Man,” but neither is associated with the declined-dinner story.