Infidels is the twenty-second studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on October 27, 1983, by Columbia Records.
Produced by Mark Knopfler and Dylan himself, Infidels is seen as his return to secular music, following a conversion to Christianity, three evangelical records and a subsequent return to a less religious lifestyle. Though he has never entirely abandoned religious imagery, Infidels gained much attention for its focus on more personal themes of love and loss, in addition to commentary on the environment and geopolitics. Christopher Connelly of Rolling Stone called those gospel albums just prior to Infidels "lifeless", and considered Infidels to be Dylan's best poetic and melodic work since Blood on the Tracks.
The critical reaction was the strongest for Dylan in years, almost universally hailed for its songwriting and performances. The album also fared well commercially, reaching in the US and going gold, and in the UK. The album's highest chart position worldwide was in Norway, where it peaked at No. 1. Fans and critics were disappointed that several songs were inexplicably cut from the album just prior to mastering—primarily "Blind Willie McTell", considered a career highlight by many critics, and not officially released until it appeared on The Bootleg Series Volume III eight years later. The album was recorded and mixed entirely on digital recording equipment.
Recording sessions Infidels was produced by Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler, who had previously played guitar on Dylan's Slow Train Coming. Dylan initially wanted to produce the album himself, but feeling that technology had passed him by, he approached a number of contemporary artists who were more at home in a modern recording studio. David Bowie, Frank Zappa and Elvis Costello were all approached before Dylan hired Knopfler.
Knopfler said it was difficult to produce Dylan:
Once Knopfler was aboard, the two quickly assembled a team of accomplished musicians. Knopfler's own guitar playing was paired with that of Mick Taylor, a former lead guitarist of the Rolling Stones. Having been introduced to Taylor the previous summer, Dylan had developed a friendship with him that resulted in the guitarist hearing the Infidels material first during the months leading up to the April sessions. In addition, the sessions benefited from Taylor's ability as a slide guitarist.
Knopfler said about the instrument he plays on Infidels: "I still haven't got a flat-top wooden acoustic, because I've never found one that was as good as the two best flat tops I ever played. One ... was a hand-built Greco that Rudy Pensa of Rudy's Music Stop lent me. I used ... the Greco on Infidels."
Knopfler suggested Alan Clark for keyboards as well as engineer Neil Dorfsman, both of whom were hired. According to Knopfler, it was Dylan's idea to recruit Robbie Shakespeare and Sly Dunbar as the rhythm section. Best known as Sly & Robbie, Shakespeare and Dunbar were famed reggae producers as well as recording artists signed to Island Records.
"Bob's musical ability is limited, in terms of being able to play a guitar or a piano," said Knopfler. "It's rudimentary, but it doesn't affect his variety, his sense of melody, his singing. It's all there. In fact, some of the things he plays on piano while he's singing are lovely, even though they're rudimentary. That all demonstrates the fact that you don't have to be a great technician. It's the same old story: If something is played with soul, that's what's important."
Songs Beginning with Infidels, Dylan ceased to preach a specific religion, revealing little about his personal religious beliefs in his lyrics. In 1997, after recovering from a serious heart condition, Dylan said in an interview for Newsweek, "Here's the thing with me and the religious thing. This is the flat-out truth: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music. I don't find it anywhere else ... I don't adhere to rabbis, preachers, evangelists, all of that. I've learned more from the songs than I've learned from any of this kind of entity."
Though Infidels is often cited as a return to secular work (following a trio of albums heavily influenced by born-again Christianity), many of the songs recorded during the Infidels sessions retain Dylan's penchant for biblical references and religious imagery.Balassone, Damian (April 4, 2012) "Jokerman" An example of this is the opening track, "Jokerman". Along with biblical references, the song's lyrics reference populists who are overly concerned with the superficial ("Michelangelo indeed could've carved out your features") and more about action than thinking through the complexities ("fools rush in where angels fear to tread"). A number of critics have called Jokerman a sly political protest, addressed to an antichrist-likeBalassone, Damian (October 29, 2010) "Dylan, the Devil and Judas", Overland. figure, a "manipulator of crowds ... a dream twister".
The second track, "Sweetheart Like You", is sung to a fictitious woman. Oliver Trager's book Keys to the Rain: The Definitive Bob Dylan Encyclopedia mentions that some have criticized this song as sexist. Indeed, music critic Tim Riley makes that accusation in his book Hard Rain: A Dylan Commentary, singling out lyrics like "a woman like you should be at home/That's where you belong/Taking care of somebody nice/Who don't know how to do you wrong." However, Trager also cites other interpretations that dispute this claim.Riley, Tim (1992). Hard Rain: A Dylan Commentary, pp. 271-72. New York: Da Capo Press (updated edition, 1999). . Some have argued that "Sweetheart Like You" is being sung to the Christian church ("what's a sweetheart like you doing in a dump like this?"), claiming that Dylan is mourning the church's deviation from scriptural truth. The song was later covered by Rod Stewart on his 1995 album A Spanner in the Works and translated and sung by the Italian songwriter Francesco De Gregori in his 2015 album De Gregori sings Bob Dylan. Dylan later stated that the line which some criticized "didn't come out exactly the way I wanted it to."
The song "Neighborhood Bully" is a song from the point of view of someone using sarcasm to defend Israel's right to exist; the title bemoans Israel's and the Jewish people's historic treatment in the popular press. Events in the history of the State of Israel are referenced, such as the Six-Day War and Operation Opera, Israel's bombing of the Osirak nuclear reactor near Baghdad on June 7, 1981, or previous bomb making sites bombed by Israeli soldiers. Events in the history of the Israelites as a whole are mentioned, such as being enslaved by Rome, Egypt, and Babylon. Events in modern Jewish secular history are noted as well, such as the Jews' historic role in the advancement of medicine ("took sickness and disease and turned them into health"). Historic restrictions on Jewish commerce are mentioned as well. In 1983, Dylan visited Israel again, but for the first time allowed himself to be photographed there, including a shot at Jerusalem's open-air synagogue wearing a yarmulkah and Jewish phylacteries, and tallith. A photo of Dylan touching the ground outside Jerusalem, with the Al-Aqsa mosque visible in the background, is featured on the album's inner sleeve. Some described the song as a declaration of "full-throated Israel support", a "Zionist anthem" and a "bitter and indignant defense of Israel's actions". However, when interviewed in 1984 by Rolling Stone, Dylan said that the song was "not a political song" because it did not "fall into a certain political party" while adding that the song might be an expression of heartfelt belief, he didn't "know what the politics of Israel" were, said he had "not really" resolved his views on the "Palestinian question" and stated that "the battle of the Armageddon" will be "fought in the Middle East." In 2001, the Jerusalem Post described the song as "a favorite among Dylan-loving residents of the territories".David Brinn, "Brilliant when he sings", Jerusalem Post, 7 December 2001, 12B. Israeli singer Ariel Zilber covered "Neighborhood Bully" in 2005 in a version translated to Hebrew.Zilber's version made use of the original text but is commonly taken as referring to Israel's unilateral disengagement plan, the subject of several other songs in the album, Anabel.
A few critics like Robert Christgau and Bill Wyman claimed that Infidels betrayed a strong, strange dislike for space travel, and that it can be heard on the first few lines of "License to Kill". ("Man has invented his doom/First step was touching the moon.") A harsh indictment accusing mankind of imperialism and a predilection for violence, the song deals specifically with humanity's relationship to the environment, either on a political scale or a scientific one, beginning with the first line: "Man thinks because he rules the Earth/He can do with it as he please." A skeptical opinion toward the American space program was shared among evangelicals of Dylan's generation.This was most famously articulated by contemporary Christian music icon Larry Norman, whose songs declared variously "you say you beat the Russians to the Moon but I say you starved your children to do it" and "We need a solution/We need salvation/Let's send some people to the moon to gather information/And all they brought back was a big bag of rocks/Only cost 13 billion/Must be nice rocks". In a Rolling Stone interview, he said he wasn't sure why he wrote the line critical of space travel, but believed what he stated in the song.
"Man of Peace" is the fifth track, and deals with the concept that Satan, or evil generally, may disguise himself to mislead humanity. In a 1984 interview, he told the reviewer that "you can't be for peace and be global" and compared it to the song.
"Union Sundown" is a political protest song against imported consumer goods and offshoring. In the song, Dylan examines the subject from several different angles, discussing the greed and power of unions and corporations ("You know capitalism is above the law/It don't count unless it sells/When it costs too much to build it at home you just build it cheaper someplace else...Democracy don't rule this world/You better get that through your head/This world is ruled by violence/Though I guess that's better left unsaid"), the hypocrisy of Americans who complain about the lack of American jobs while not paying more for American-made products ("Lots of people complainin' that there is no work/I say, 'Why you say that for? When nothin' you got is U.S.-made? They don't make nothin' here no more"), the collaboration of the unions themselves ("The unions are big business, friend/And they're goin' out like a dinosaur"), and the desperate conditions of the foreign workers who make the goods ("All the furniture, it says "Made in Brazil"/Where a woman, she slaved for sure/Bringin' home thirty cents a day to a family of twelve/You know, that's a lot of money to her...And a man's going to do what he has to do/When he's got a hungry mouth to feed"). In a 1984 interview, Dylan said the song was based on what he had seen, personally, when growing up.
"I and I", according to author/critic Tim Riley, "updates the Dylan mythos. Even though it substitutes self-pity for the [pessimism found throughout Infidels], you can't ignore it as a Dylan spyglass: 'Someone else is speakin' with my mouth, but I'm listening only to my heart/I've made shoes for everyone, even you, while I still go barefoot.'"Quoted in Trager, Oliver (2004). Keys to the Rain: The Definitive Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, p. 270. New York: Billboard Books. . Riley sees the song as an exploration of the distance between Dylan's "inner identity and the public face he wears".