"4th Time Around" (also listed as "Fourth Time Around") is a song by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, which was released as the 12th track on his seventh studio album Blonde on Blonde on June 20, 1966. The song was written by Dylan and produced by Bob Johnston. Commentators often interpret it as a parody of the Beatles' 1965 song "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)". John Lennon composed "Norwegian Wood" after being influenced by the introspective lyrics of Dylan. Lennon later reflected on his feelings of paranoia when Dylan first played him "4th Time Around".

Twenty takes of "4th Time Around", most of them incomplete, were recorded at Columbia Studio A, Nashville, on February 14, 1966. The last of these was used for the album. "4th Time Around" has received critical acclaim, despite being identified as one of the lesser tracks on Blonde on Blonde.

A few weeks after the release of his sixth studio album Highway 61 Revisited (1965), Bob Dylan's first recording session for his next album was on October 5, 1965, at Columbia Studio A, New York City. The producer was Bob Johnston who had supervised from the third, to the concluding sixth, recording session for Highway 61 Revisited at the same studio. After this session, Dylan toured the United States and Canada; there was a second recording session in New York on November 30, during the tour. Three recording sessions in January (on the 21st, 25th and 27th) were not productive.

At Johnston's suggestion, the location for the sessions was changed to Nashville, Tennessee. After two further concerts, the fifth album session took place at Columbia Studio A, Nashville. Johnston organized for experienced session musicians including Charlie McCoy, Wayne Moss, Kenneth Buttrey and Joe South to play with Dylan. They were joined by Robbie Robertson and Al Kooper who had both played at earlier sessions. Twenty takes of "4th Time Around", most of them incomplete, were recorded at the start of the first Nashville session, on February 14, 1966. The twentieth take was used on Blonde on Blonde, with overdubs recorded in June. The album was released on June 20, 1966.

Dylan biographer Robert Shelton wrote that "the guitar figure repeats a rippling, romantic Mexican cadence". He related that Dylan told him that he had always been "hip to" Tejano music and a type of Mexican folk-pop music known as "cangacero", and that these had influenced his songs "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" and "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" as well as "4th Time Around".

Dylan biographer Clinton Heylin speculated that "4th Time Around" was written either hours or days before the Nashville recording session. Yet journalist Johnny Black claims that the song existed "for some time" before the Nashville sessions, relying on Al Kooper's recollection: "[Bob] said that he had played it to [the Beatles]. So I asked him if they'd remarked on how similar it sounded to Norwegian Wood and he said, 'When I played it to them, there was no Norwegian Wood.' Then I asked if they might sue him. He said, 'No, my song came first. I could sue them.'"

The song has five verses, each with nine lines. The lyrics appear to address a love triangle, and the narrator's memories of a separation from a former lover. Scholar of English literature Michael Rodgers wrote that "the song is notable for its vitriol and how much the speaker acts the clown". In the first verse, a woman that the narrator has been arguing with says "Everybody must give something back/For something they get". The narrator questions why, and in the second verse, responds immaturely as he relates that he "gallantly handed her/My very last piece of gum". Critic Michael Gray refers to the start of the track as a "cold, mocking put-down of a woman and a relationship untouched by love". He writes that the song contains instances of sexual innuendo that highlight "Dylan's skill in pursuing the suggestive".

Commentators often interpret "4th Time Around" as a response to the Beatles' song "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)", written by John Lennon for the 1965 album Rubber Soul. "Norwegian Wood" obliquely addresses Lennon's romantic affair with a journalist. Dylan and the Beatles first met each other in August 1964, in New York. They were appreciative of each other's work, and some commentators have identified Dylan, whose lyrics contained "honest self-scrutiny and melancholy" as an influence on Lennon's writing in particular, first evidenced in "I'm a Loser" (1964). Heylin has suggested that Dylan, having noticed his influence on Rubber Soul, wrote "4th Time Around" as "a way of showing that he could raise the bar lyrically on Lennon".