License to POLL: Which is the best track on Bob Dylan's 'Infidels'?

Sweetheart vs. License for me. Love this album.

Half of this album is garbage. Probably "Jokerman." His iniging on that thing + Sly & Robbie = thing of wonder

"jokerman dance to the nightingale tune, bird fly high by the light of the moon . . ."

one of my favorite of his moral condemnation songs from the recovering-evangelical phase

the internal rhymes on that thing

Jokerman, over License To Kill

Check out this video, Tom Petty's stellar cover of License To Kill from Bob's 50th birthday celebration concert in the early 90s. So good, and easily my favorite thing from that show.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

only heard this album in full for the first time last week. Knopfler seemed pretty restrained, you can barely tell he's there.

hope this works, posting on an ipad. "Jokerman" on Letterman.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwdUwxhjnYY

I voted jokerman, but i might be biased because i was born with a snake in both of my fists while a hurricane was blowing.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

hznfrst 3 weeks ago

You missed the point entirely! I have practically every album he ever made starting with the first one. I continue to buy his albums because they are works of genius, most of them. What I don't like are his live shows, and then only his crappy singing! You are one clueless doofus!

· in reply to Justin B Hill (Show the comment)

the comment section on that letterman performance vid is very heated

i wish dylan had kept the plugz around for a while.

these results are crazy

what did you vote for?

Sweetheart. I didn't think it would win, but License getting the same number of votes as Neighborhood Bully? Crazy. And Jokerman, while great, is way overrated here. Also, lousy turnout.

missed this poll somehow...might've thrown a vote to I&I

I voted jokerman, but i might be biased because i was born with a snake in both of my fists while a hurricane was blowing.

― Treeship, Sunday, June 9, 2013 6:12 PM

:))

Always a little bummed that this album so short... they recorded some other great songs in those sessions. I guess this blurb explains things somewhat?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infidels_(Bob_Dylan_album)#Final_sequencing_and_mixing

(Also, LOL @ the description of "Man of Peace," in the "Songs" section of that Wikipedia page.)

this is the first dylan record in his entire discography that hasn't really worked for me, it feels overworked and sleepy in a way none of his previous records were. maybe it'll grow on me! but it was very surprising how much of a comedown from the (ecstatic, wonderful, incredibly arranged) christian period this is

I agree it’s not as strong overall as Saved or Shot of Love, but I’m more likely to listen to it… maybe because I was young when it was “new“ and on the family turntable, so it has that kind of resonance for me. Plus the first two tracks are totally fucking awesome.

Knopfler's production adds the required crispness, and the good to great songs -- there aren't many -- are as sharp as its two predecessors'. The cripsness also underlines what a hysteric he'd become.

Still, "Jokerman" is in my top five Dylan.

I like Infidels but this just nags at my enjoyment so much

Dylan spent roughly a month on remixing and overdubbing, holding a number of sessions in June re-recording vocal tracks using newly rewritten lyrics. During this time, he decided to cast aside "Foot of Pride" and "Blind Willie McTell", replacing them with "Union Sundown".

My friend shared this on FB: A Canadian band covered Infidels in the style of Dylan w/The Plugz on Letterman.

https://outfitdoesinfidels.bandcamp.com/album/daniel-romanos-outfit-do-what-could-have-been-infidels-by-bob-dylan-the-plugz

fuck that's really good actually

You should cross-ref it here: Bob Dylan's punk period

that petty cover of license to kill great

Bob Dylan has never had a good song.

you're correct, everyone single one is great

xpost damn you've finally opened my eyes, time to toss those records i guess

maybe it'll grow on me

it did

i love "jokerman" and "sweetheart like you" and sly and robbie's playing throughout. the prudction is weird and wobbly and (i'm guessing) no other dylan record sounds like it

Neighborhood Bully 1

lol @ this tho

i mean the production is very crisp but the record sounds.. out of balance

the subject matter of "neighborhood bully" and "union sundown" makes me really miss jesus

Brad, you’re aware that Foot of Pride and Blind Willie McTell of Bootleg Series 1-3 were originally going to be on this in place of Union Sundown?

That would have been a monster.

oh wow those songs are amazing! wtf bob

Yeah, it’s almost willfully perverse. One of the real shames in his catalogue.

I don't like how "License to Kill" was recorded - it sounds really weak. Later on, I saw the Letterman performance praised by so many fans, and I was stunned by how much better it came across in a new arrangement with the Plugz:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkEx4BDhRjw

But otherwise, it's a drag on the album, and "Neighborhood Bully" and "Union Sundown" are pretty terrible too, which is stunning from someone who made his name with topical protest songs, albeit 20 years earlier. "Foot of Pride" and "Blind Willie McTell" would have been an immense improvement, but without them I'm not even sure I can call this a good album, much less a great one.

The next Bootleg Series will reportedly collect the Infidels sessions with a tentative May or June release date.

It's not a favorite, but I did enjoy an alternate tracklist that dropped "License to Kill," "Neighborhood Bully" and "Union Sundown" while adding "Foot of Pride," the unreleased version of "Someone's Got a Hold of My Heart" (lots of great guitar), and the electric version of "Blind Willie McTell."

"Jokerman" is a top five Dylan vocal performance, and one of the sharpest interpolations of Biblical allusions.

Guess I’ll need to by this, to compensate for my purchase of Rough Cuts.

Jokerman is so good, love how it's all over-the-top Biblical/apocalyptic language and then

Resting in the fields, far from the turbulent space
half asleep 'neath the stars, with a small dog licking your face

and my god Robbie Shakespeare's bass line.

Was it Dylan or Knopfler's idea to hire Sly & Robbie? Regardless, it's a pretty inspired mix having them as the rhythm section with Knopfler and Mick Taylor on guitars.

wiki says it was bob who wanted to have them

also... apparently before knopfler he asked bowie, costello and Zappa to produce it!

« Jokerman » has become one of my favourite Dylan songs over the last few years. It’s the only song of his that I still play regularly (together with a selection from More Blood More Tracks).

I’ve tries to make alt version of the album but there are really terrible songs to deal with...

it's a terrible album. Even the pretty "Sweetheart Like You" gets on my nerves. Elsewhere Knopfler can't shut up with the guitar squiggles.

no way dogg

Yeah, weird take

oh yes. "Neighborhood Bully"? "Union Sundown"? "Don't Fall Apart On Me Tonight" ("CUZ I CANNOT HAAAANDLE I-I-I-I-IT" -- step AWAY, dude)?

Let's agree it's half-terrible.

I'll insist Empire Burlesque has many more good songs despite the lack of a classy production.

Well, he ain't alone in hating it (see Robert Christgau or Greil Marcus's take on it) but this is the first I've heard of anyone dumping on Knopfler's guitar work. That's just WRONG.

I like "Don't Fall Apart On Me Tonight" though, I LOVE how Dylan sings "You were so fine, Clark Gable would have fell at your feet and laid his life on the line" and the way his harmonica and Knopfler's (or Taylor's?) guitar blend together right after that.

But "Neighborhood Bully"and "Union Sundown" both suck.

He's too busy on "Jokerman," on which he can't resist answering Dylan with okay squiggles. I prefer a dryer take with just organ, piano, and the astonishing Sly and Robbie rhythm section.

I don't like Infidels as much as I used to, but I am jacked for this. IIRC, the Heylin Sessions book lists 50+ songs recorded during these sessions, including numerous covers.

Any chance the Letterman versions could be on this?

^Would be great, but v unlikely. Btw – where was this news posted? I just did a quick search and found nuthin’

Any chance the Letterman versions could be on this?

We'll see. I hope so. On the album, "License to Kill" flat out sucks, but the Letterman performance actually makes it sound great. (Even the way the audio and the audience obscures the opening line helps because it's one of the album's stupid space travel references.)

^Would be great, but v unlikely. Btw – where was this news posted? I just did a quick search and found nuthin’

The new issue of the Dylan mag ISIS has an article on it. I don't get the magazine, people just reposted that info on various Dylan/music forums.

FWIW, I also think “Don’t Fall Apart on Me Tonight” has some great lines... it’s a remarkably “vulnerable” song, too.

birdistheword – do you know who/what is being referenced in the lines directly preceding the Clark Gable one?:

Oh, do you remember St. James Street
Where you blew Jackie P.’s mind?

No idea, I just figured Dylan liked the sound of "Jackie P." and "St. James Street" (which is loaded with so many references - even bringing to mind St. James Hotel from "Blind Willie McTell" - that it may just stand out as a memorable name rather than any place he had in mind).

Just as a test, I tried a google autofill search on "Jackie P____," and it didn't produce any likely results.

I bet it's a reference to the late Quebec Separatist leader Jacques Parizeau. St. James Street is in London, where he received a doctorate from the London School of Economics.

ISIS issued an update:

In my editorial in the new ISIS, I mentioned that “The Bootleg Series Vol. 16” would be with us in May/June 2021. Unfortunately, since sending the magazine to the printer, to quote Bob Dylan, “things have changed.” Originally planned for May, around the time of Dylan’s birthday, the release slipped to June but has now been re-schedulable for much later in the year and will appear nearer the more ‘usual’ period for “BS” releases.

https://www.bobdylanisis.com/access-all-areas-blog/

"schedulable"?

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/AdolescentDefiniteBarasingha-size_restricted.gif

I trusted ISIS about a release date in May, but they could not hold on to it very long...

lol

Forgot the Dream Syndicate released a great "Blind Willie McTell" cover in 1988, back when it was still an "unreleased" song. They obviously heard the circulating bootleg, judging by the arrangement, and they improve upon it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwZ9j0ncjEY

Found more info on it - it's been collected on various compilations, and it's currently available through bandcamp:

https://stevewynn1.bandcamp.com/album/steve-sings-bob

BLIND WILLIE MCTELL - THE DREAM SYNDICATE
Musicians: Steve Wynn, Paul B. Cutler, Mark Walton, Chris
Cacavas, Dennis Duck (1988)

The Dream Syndicate had just played a well-known TV show in Germany and the show's host Alan Bangs invited me back to his place for some serious drinking and record listening. He had an incredible collection and saved the crowning jewel for last. It was an unreleased Dylan track from the "Infidels" sessions called "Blind Willie McTell." I couldn't believe it. How could this song, so much better than anything else from that session, have been left off the album. I felt it was our mission to let people hear the song and, much like an enthused town crier, it felt best to spread the word with my own voice. This version is from the late great Deirdre O' Donoghue's radio show on KCRW in Santa Monica and one year later it was released as a single by the UK magazine "Bucketful of Brains," marking the first time the song had officially seen the light of day, a few years before Dylan's version was released on the first of his bootleg series. We even had to get the permission of his publishing staff to put out our version before he did. I like to think that Bob sat in his home one night, listened to our version of "Blind Willie McTell," smiled and said "That will do."

Big news!: https://www.instagram.com/p/CNYcpzGgw7d/

I never heard Sly & Robbie talk about this album before, so I did a quick search and found this interview with Robbie from 2012:

https://unitedreggae.com/articles/n1024/062612/interview-robbie-shakespeare

----

Q: Final question, what is it about all the time people you work with - whether it's a Sinead O'Connor, a Bob Dylan, a Chezidek, a Chantelle Ernandez - that makes you say "Yes, I can work with this person?"

A: You just called one of my favourites again - Bob Dylan! (laughs) Now Bob was one of my all time writers and singers from a long time. The way Bob Dylan put words together was very unique and masterful. When we worked with Bob, he worked the way we work. He'd just go in the studio and start playing and we'd just jump in. There wasn't any pressure from him - you'd more pressure yourself to make sure you get the right thing. Which I do, mostly every session, to get the right thing, the right flavour, the right mix. And because we were born in a reggae town and played in a reggae town you have to get the thing out and sounding in a way where no man will say "Cho! It's reggae man" you know? So we add a little uniqueness to it because we want to get it the right way.

----

RIP Robbie

Also here:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/dec/09/robbie-shakespeare-married-funk-and-reggae-to-create-a-catalogue-of-classics

“Mick Taylor and Mark Knopfler put out the sheets with the chord changes, and we just deal with it,” Shakespeare emphasised. “When we met, Bob said, ‘I heard that you guys love to work, so I’m gonna blow you out of the ground,’ and I said, ‘Oh no, Bob, it should be the other way round!’ But Bob Dylan is the greatest writer in the universe in our time. I used to love all the Dylan songs I hear, like Seven Days and Lay Lady Lay. Bob Dylan is the man who make me start checking song lyrics.”

don't think this got linked in this thread yet but it's good to watch robbie enjoying himself on this clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di6wU11_4Wg

this came out recently as a record store day thing, pretty fun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmrrzLoO-UQ

A friend of mine who's a Dylan nut played that for me a few months ago--it's shockingly credible!

a fella by the name of Daniel Romano imagines what Infidels would have been like if Dylan had done Infidels with the Plugz, works pretty great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqeerOQLT1c

Thanks! Another great cover: Lou Reed's "Foot of Pride," on the 2-CD xpost 50th Anniversary concert comp. Performed with a lyric sheet, as well he might, considering epic lyric density, but it worked great, as is said to be the case w D.'s own latter-day shows (taking some effort-to-recall strain off the voice).

Really cool that some on went for it and realized this project. Not exactly my wheelhouse but it sounds great.

nice

enjoy the dub mixes too

caetano veloso does a great jokerman as does built to spill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTecPituJwg

V, informative--and the most free Double E's (sic) content in quite a while, seems like:

Plugz Bassist Talks Backing Bob Dylan in Raucous Letterman Performance
Months of rehearsals led to one of the most unusual, and memorable, performances of Dylan's career

FYI, we have a thread on this: Bob Dylan's punk period

Once during rehearsals the cops showed up right?

The neighbors used to complain. As far away as the houses were next to Bob – which was quite far, the property as pretty large – sound travels. We played loud. We’d been told before to turn it down.

That one day [when the cops came], Bob just hightailed it into the back room. He just said, “Tell them you’re playing with Waylon Jennings.”

Incredible.

Dylan as guy who talks mad shit about the cops at a party until the cops actually show up:CONFIRMED

This story gets better and better. I just got to the part about Liberace.

So what happens right after? You finish “Jokerman” on a weird note with the harmonica, you walk off, how does the evening end?

It's kind of a blur at this point. I think we went out to a bar, just me and the band. Dylan split. He went to a Knicks game.

"I'll tell everything I know."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Start_Me_Talkin%27

Bob had this big reel-to-reel tape machine. He liked to record the stuff and listen to it later too, but Bob didn't know how to work the reel-to-reel. Every time he tried to use it, the reels would just go flying and spinning. It was a clusterfuck.

This sounds like a hilarious scene in a Bob Dylan comedy I want to see. Maybe the one he bailed on because it was "too slapsticky."

Dylan as guy who talks mad shit about the cops at a party until the cops actually show up:CONFIRMED

Cops a comin', me a runnin'

"I didn't know whether to duck or to run so I ran"

that double e's interview is a real treat! looking forward to his book

The word we're using is “jamming,” but can you talk about what specifically that means? What are you actually doing for eight hours a day?

We wouldn't really talk about what we were doing. We would just we go in the room. Bob would take out the guitar and just start strumming a couple chords. We all just fall in and jam on something.

Is he singing or is this mostly instrumental?

It was mostly instrumental, though he would mumble under stuff. Not really sing words.

Some of these are songs, some are things I think he's working on in his head. We recognize a few of the older songs, but it was a lot of just getting a groove and a vibe.

So we would just play on a song for 15, 20 minutes, looking out over the Pacific. It was a whole different experience in what we were used to. We didn't do that in our punk bands, where the songs were two minutes long.

Is it musically satisfying, or are you looking at your watch by minute 15 of the same song?

Totally satisfying. Are you kidding? There was none of that “we're working” vibe. We're making music and it feels good.

Yeah, maybe he was at least sometimes thinking about writing, seeing if it might come his way---reminds me of Malibu barn session w Carole Bayer Sager: https://www.vulture.com/2016/10/bob-dylan-carole-bayer-sager-book-excerpt.html

("Elizabeth" referred to is Elizabeth Taylor--says later in her memoir that he came to the party that Sayer gave for Taylor's 55th birthday.)

haha that's a great one, thanks

I refocused. “So, do you have any ideas of what you feel like writing?”

“Well, I’ve got a little bit of an idea.”

He mumbled his words very softly. I thought he said “I godda libble bid a deer.”

they really should do an anthology of these working with bob memories

Still, "Jokerman" is in my top five Dylan.

they really should do an anthology of these working with bob memories
Yes, these two were great.

“I godda libble bid a deer.”

I fought LOLing and almost spit my coffee upon reading this

Somehow reminds me of
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgA34GXWj0o

Really?
― Naive Teen Idol,

Really.

I like the song fine, but that seems a little odd for a guy with Dylan’s songbook.

Why? It's as great a song as any, and I've been blasting it since 1999. I'd rather listen to it right now than "Tangled Up in Blue."

Yeah, I think "Jokerman" is a great song. Maybe not one of my absolute favorites, or even my favorite from those sessions (I probably prefer "I and I," "Blind Willie McTell" and "Foot of Pride"), but it's one of his best from that era.

FWIW, here's Michael Bolton of all people on his collaboration.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/michael-bolton-interview-bob-dylan-steel-bars-912917/

I always wondered if Dylan did some songwriting collaborations just to pump up his cash flow - he hasn't shown any interest in Bolton's music before or after, but he knew Bolton's albums sold in a huge numbers, so even one co-songwriting credit is lucrative. (Not that he's strapped for cash, but when you get used to a way of living and have a lot of your money in various things, you don't want to cut back if you don't have to.) Besides songwriting collaborations, another trick he seems to use is getting big-selling acts to cover his songs, like when he pitched "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" to Guns n' Roses. (Rose: “Bob asked me, ‘When you gonna record ‘Heaven’s Door’? And I said, ‘I don’t know, but we really love that song.’ And he said, ‘I don’t give a fuck. I just want the money.’ True story!”) This was before Dylan had the Bootleg Series going at full speed and when his own new releases weren't catching on.

He co-wrote a song with Gene Simmons during this period too.

I was going to say his divorce might have had something to do with it, but that wasn't finalized until 1992. (I don't have any experience with it, but maybe the costs add up earlier?)

When people called the 1978 tour the alimony tour, that wasn't just a joke - he really was in need of money due to the cost of the divorce AND sinking in way too much of his own money into Renaldo and Clara. (Keeping the editing/post-production up and running for any film for two or three years will be very costly, much moreso when one person is bearing the expense instead of a large company.)

Simmons recalled in an interview with For Bass Players Only back in 2018 that everything started when he simply made a phone call. The musician said that he is a very linear person and he is delusionally fearless. Because of that personality, even that he was thinking ‘Why the fuck would he want to write with me?’ he decided to call Dylan’s manager because maybe for some reason he would like to. “Throw caution to the wind, and dive into the deep end of the pool. So I called his manager, a good guy, ‘“Hi, Can I speak with Bob?'”, the manager then replied: “‘What do you wanna talk to him about?'” and Simmons said: “‘I, uh, I want to write a song with Bob.”

All of the sudden, within two days, an unmarked van shows up at my house. Bob gets out with an acoustic guitar and tells his driver ‘I’ll see you at the end of the day’. We start strumming! It was just like that. And he was asking ME, and this is in the box set, ‘So, how do you write songs?’.

“Well, you know, I come up with stuff, and Paul writes stuff.” Bob replied: “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then the other guys play it?”. Gene answered: “Well, I usually tell them what parts to play.” He goes, “You do?” And I couldn’t believe I was having this discussion. Yeah, we were talking about how we write songs. It’s still a life highlight, if you see what I mean.”

love the idea of Bob telling his van driver, "Pick me at 4, I'm writing with Gene here."

Ah, here's the gem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZr2TWiE69I

It was news to me that Lou Reed also wrote a Kiss song (or more than one?).

I'd also rank "Jokerman" among my faves, fwiw

‘Why the fuck would he want to write with me?’

Classic Gene

Kinda reminds me: "Do you play jazz?" He asks his interviewer that in the monster Songwriters on Songwriting, and then describes how he sometimes uses patterns from jazz in writing--by which he may mean adaptation, since he said somewhere else, "First of all, I'm not a melodist." He says a lot of stuff, probably works different ways over the many years etc. Pretty good talk, anyway.
As for collabs, here are brief descriptions of five:
https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/bob-dylans-greatest-collaborations-100538/ Over on Rolling Bootlegs, I think, birdistheword prefers another version of "Brownsville Girl," with a different town in the title, doesn't like the punched-in guitar break, for inst., but I don't mind it, esp. in a patchwork song, from a conversation about trying to remember something in a Gregory Peck Western, also about swap meets etc.
Speaking of his work w Jacques Levy referenced in there, Claudia Levy launched a suit re royalities, but after D. sold his catalog, which. hmmm, don't know how that's turned out---anyway, good coverage here https://www.billboard.com/pro/bob-dylan-lawsuit-co-writer-song-catalog-sale/ (and good comments about that on bob dylan: desire, the poll)
More interesting to me: her friendship with Dylan, incl. before either had met Jacques--she introduced them---and some stuff about working conditions---she should write a book, however things go or have concluded litigation-wise---pretty good interview with her here:https://dylanlive.substack.com/p/jacques-levys-wife-explains-the-late

Oh, re "Jammin' Me," collab w Petty mentioned in that Stone shortie: it was okay, in a predictable way, think it might have been on a 12" single I had w "Band of the Hand," which he may have written all of, though mainly effective as shuffle for group vocals which a movie reviewer compared to a screech own--it was for and recurred in a Michael Mann flick, of the same title as song, I think, pretty much just "Ban-nd of the Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand," with slide etc., but that was enough.

screech owl, I meant.

"Jammin' Me" was Petty and Campbel mostly; Dylan added a few pop culture lines.

I don't know if it's ilx, but Jokerman's chorus sounds like the Top Gun Anthem

"Jammin' Me" was Petty and Campbel mostly; Dylan added a few pop culture lines.

It might be why he rarely performed it (he also hates, incorrectly, Let Me Up).