Track Listing

1. Jokerman
2. Sweetheart Like You
3. Neighborhood Bully
4. License To Kill
5. Man Of Peace
6. Union Sundown
7. I And I
8. Don't Fall Apart On Me Tonight

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4500 in Music
• Released on: 2004-03-29
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

A masterpiece with a few mistakes
It was good to have Dylan back again after the religious outings on the previous three albums. "Infidels" is a fine release in a decade where Dylan struggled to find his form. He more or less deliberately released a number of under-par albums, where the best songs from various sessions where discarded and the weaker material came out on cd/vinyl. Interviews with musicians from the various sessions have since confirmed this. This alternative strategy resulted in such abominations as "Knocked out Loaded" and "Down in the Groove", and even the masterpiece from 1989 "Oh Mercy" had one of the greatest songs omitted, namely "Series of Dreams".

The same holds true for "Infidels". While "Jokerman", "Sweetheart Like You", "License to Kill", "I and I" and "Don't Fall Apart on Me Tonight" hold a very high quality, songs like "Neighbourhood Bully", "Union Sundown" and "Man of Peace" are decidedly filler material. I would even go as far as to say that "Neighbourhood Bully" and "Union Sundown" are probably the worst Dylan songs I have heard.

One song in particular was omitted from the "Infidels" session, namely "Blind Willie McTell". In this song we hear Dylan on piano and Mark Knopfler on 12-string acoustic guitar. It is an intense and well crafted song that easily finds its way into the best ten songs Dylan ever wrote. It bears a resemblance to "Dirge" from "Planet Waves" where Dylan played piano and Robbie Robertson played acoustic guitar. "Blind Willie McTell" was later released on the official bootleg albums.

"Infidels" could and should have been Dylan's best release since "Desire", but poor judgement on Dylan's part has prevented this. However, I am able to program my cd-player in order to avoid the filler material and what's left has enough quality for five stars.

Dylan at his best
With an almost complete collection of Dylan CDs to choose from this is the one that gets selected more than any other.
The selection of songs is simply wonderful and this is Bob with his best singing voice and with lyrics that reach the soul. Those that reckon Dylan has not got a singing voice must change their minds after listening to Infidels.
Sweetheart Like You, I and I, Licence to Kill - such moving songs. Man of Peace is great listening but to single out individual tracks is not fair - this is an album you can listen to from start to finish without any sign of fatigue.
Why some critics knocked this collection I cannot understand. This is Dylan, deep, sensual, melodic and exciting.

This is where religion became Dylan's foundation but not his main focus
INFIDELS, Bob Dylan's 22nd studio album, was released in 1983 to largely enthusiastic reviews and critical response. The album was noted both for its strong, secular (!!) songwriting, and for its production which gave the songs a nice, clean sound. Mark Knopfler and Dylan gave INFIDELS a very tasteful, rather modern production, and sounds akin to Dire Straits' music, which isn't surprising. While not a phenomenal seller, INFIDELS did sell fairly well, however, and a lot of his fans were rather glad to see him backing away from the explicit Christianity he had been spouting for the last several years. While he never publicly renounced his Christian faith, it is true that, starting with Infidels, his song writing would never again be so open and so poignant about the Christian faith.

When he converted to Christianity in 1978, the public was both shocked and dismayed. Of all people, Dylan is now a professing Christian? Though much of the music in the early 1960s used the Bible as a reference point and moral compass, still his fan base was not receptive to him becoming a Christian. Then in the early 1980s, he only sang his Christian material and went on long tirades about his faith in concert. But this would only last for a few years. By 1983, Dylan was in was a strange place, both spiritually and professionally. He had just finished recording his Christian trilogy, where he was explicitly espousing the Christian doctrine (gotta serve somebody, after all). He took up with some Hassidic Jews, had his picture taken at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, and while not giving up his Christian faith, was still intent on keeping his Jewish roots alive. When the time came to record a new album, the music he wrote was no longer blatantly Christian, and ever since has distance himself from organized religion. [This however bears closer examination]

INFIDELS marks his return to (apparently) overtly secular music. This is the first secular music he had recorded since 1978's STREET LEGAL (though SHOT OF LOVE from 1981 had some secular songs as well). INFIDELS was greeted rather enthusiastically, largely because he was no longer singing Christian music, at least on the surface. Upon closer examination, however, we just see Dylan was more intent on [camouflaging his faith more.] making his faith a natural, background feature of the music, not the dominant, and sometimes overpowering, focus of his art.

Starting with "Jokerman" and ending with "Don't Fall Apart on Me Tonight," the album is rife with both Christian allusions and also steeped in Judaism as well. "Jokerman" has over thirty Biblical references as well. "Man of Peace" is easily the most identifiable Christian song, discussing the Anti-Christ and the End Times. "Sweetheart Like You" alludes to heaven and the streets of gold. While no longer singing only Christian songs, both Jesus, The Bible, and Jewish culture would continue to inform and be a major part of Dylan's work.

INFIDELS was also his most varied album in terms of subject matter in quite a number of years, ranging from pro-Israel foreign policy ("Neighborhood Bully"), comments on the downfall of unions ("Union Sundown"), intense, richly symbolic allegory ("Jokerman"), and gender relation comments ("I and I" and "Sweetheart like You"). The Israel song was the most explicitly political song he had written in years. Many critics were also rather surprised at the hostility Dylan displays toward space travel, almost to the point of it being an irrational fear. Some found "Neighhood Bully" rather crude and not that eloquent for getting Dylan's point across. "Don't Fall Apart on Me Tonight," a lover's plea, stands as one of Dylan's most heart felt moments on record.

Dylan's faith has always been a matter of interest to much of his audience. From the earliest part of his career in the early 1960s to 2006's MODERN TIMES, there's always been a strong, Jewish-Christian idea of morality running as one of the main undercurrents of his work, and INFIDELS, like JOHN WESLEY HARDING, has very strong ties to both Christainity and Jewish faith.

Naturally, the fact that INFIDELS is his secular return after three Christian albums is rather ironic. Dylan, being the musical genius that he is, rather than making his faith the most dominant thing about his music, instead went back to using it as the foundation and well-spring for his muse. Imagine his art as a forest. Christian and Jewish themes, present from the beginning in his work, come out of the forest and into a clearing, and Dylan put them on prominent display. With INFIDELS, he sends these elements of his work back into the forest of his art, still present, just not the only thing he wishes to portray.

Bob Dylan's faith is always present in his music, just not so explicitly drawn as on the Christian trilogy. Due to events as late as the recent concerts of the Neverending Tour, I personally believe Dylan still believes in Jesus, but just does not want to be pigeon holed and labelled. In 1997 when TIME came out, Dylan said in an interview that when it came to religion and philosophy, he learned his faith not from preachers and books but from the songs, and that's where he feels the most alive spiritual.

This review has dealt mostly with the religious and faith elements of Dylan's music, which is a discussion that can easily be book-length. One more thing should also be said of INFIDELS, that does not form part of that discussion.

The album is rather infamous among fans and critics for what the Dylan cut from the final sequence. The album as it stands has a nice flow and overall is a good album, but for many not a great one. Dylan deleted some of the strongest material from the sessions from the final running order, much to the horror of his fan base.

He recorded several songs that did not make the final cut. These are "Lord Protect My Child" "Tell Me", "Julius and Ethel", "Foot of Pride", "Blind Willie McTell", "Someone's Got A Hold of My Heart", "This Was My Love" (a cover), "Angel Flying to Close To The Ground" (a Willie Nelson song that was issued as a b-side on the Jokerman single), "Clean Cut Kid", "Death Is Not the End," and two instrumentals, "Dark Groove" and "Don't Fly Unless It is Safe".

Dylan would later revisit "Someone", "Clean Cut Kid", and "Death" on later albums. "Blind Wille" has become one of Dylan's most legendary outtakes, and for good reason. It's an amazing song. "Foot of Pride" is another Biblical epic that's a lyrical tour de force. "Julius and Ethel", about the Rosenbergs, is a great outtake would fit in well with INFIDELS as a protest song and has not been released to this day. "Lord Protect My Child" is a prayer, and "Tell Me" sounds like some of the more average songs that did make the album. There is also an electric version of "Blind Willie", much different than the officially issued take, that is rather fun to listen, though the BOOTLEG version is by far the most masterful and best take of that particular song.

Overall, several of these outtakes are as good, and in a few instances much better, than material that made the album. The album should have been made longer to include more of this material (it's only a little over 40 minutes), or even make it a double LP.

As for the cuts that did not make this album, I do concur that this is INFIDELS' single greatest weakness. The still unreleased "Julius and Ethel" is an excellent song, and the songs from THE BOOTLEG SERIES, especially "Foot of Pride" and "Blind Willie McTell," should have been definitely included on this album. All are excellent songs, and "Foot of Pride" especially ties into the Biblical imagery that runs throughout the album. If there is any dominant theme, it is that of infidelity.

Had the songs aforementioned been included, it would definitely join the ranks of the absolutely essential Dylan records, of which there are many. Instead, it stands as a post 1960s near masterpiece.