License to Kill: Bob Dylan’s Infidels at 40
Why it’s a classic despite leaving its best material on the cutting room floor
What the hell were you thinking, Bobby?
Dylan’s 22nd studio album leaves one of his greatest songs on the cutting room floor. “Blind Willie McTell” didn’t see an official release until eight years later with The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991.
Imagine Springsteen leaving “Land of Hope and Dreams” off of Wrecking Ball or U2 leaving “Vertigo” off of How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.
Then again, if we ever really knew what Dylan was truly thinking at any given time, he wouldn’t be Dylan, right?
What we do know is that Infidels, released October 27, 1983, was Dylan’s return to secularism after a widely disparaged three-album detour into Christianity. For my money, Saved and Shot of Love are worthy of the derision, but Slow Train Coming is a solid effort, boosted in large part by Mark Knopfler’s lead guitar work.
Maybe that’s why Dylan brought Knopfler back to not only lend his guitar to Infidels, but to handle the production duties, too. Along for the musical ride is an ensemble that could hold their own with The Band: Dire Straits founding keyboardist Alan Clark, reggae’s powerhouse rhythm section Sly and Robbie (drummer Sly Dunbar and bassist Robbie Shakespeare), keyboardist Benmont Tench (one of Petty’s original Heartbreakers), Clydie King (who sang background for everyone from Ray Charles to Steely Dan; rumor has it she secretly married Dylan, who fathered two children with her), and Rolling Stone Mick Taylor.
Side one kicks off with “Jokerman,” a song about Jesus. Or the Antichrist. Or God. Or the devil. Or the Pope. Or Ronald Reagan. Or Martin Luther King Jr. Or Judaism. Or Dylan himself.
It’s a critical track in the Dylan canon – his first pronouncement after the religious detour! – so it’s easy to lean on the religious aspects: Sodom, Gomorrah, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy all get namechecked, for example. But I’m gonna lean on the chorus: “Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune / Bird fly high by the light of the moon / Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman.”
VIDEO: Bob Dylan “Jokerman”
A bit of Googling will reveal that nightingales are often cited in literature and poetry as a metaphor for love, beauty and for poetry itself. Couple that with Don McLean’s reference to Dylan in “American Pie” as “The Jester” and the theory that the Jokerman is indeed rock’s preeminent poet, Mr. Zimmerman, sounds pretty good. Give it a close listen while reading the lyrics and the theory sounds even better.
Or throw all the theories out the window and just listen. Either way, it’s one of Dylan’s very best songs from the ‘80s.
(By the way, Dylan performed a New Wavey version of the song on his first-ever Letterman appearance in 1984. Vulture has a terrific article about that night, including video.)
“Sweetheart Like You” is up next, a gorgeous lyric in the vein of half the songs from Blood on the Tracks, sucking you in with the conceit that it’s about the singer meeting a rich girl in a dive bar. But then it takes a hard political turn that has an all-too-timely sting: “They say that patriotism is the last refuge / To which a scoundrel clings / Steal a little and they throw you in jail / Steal a lot and they make you king.” And that last section of Knopfler caressing the strings fades out about five minutes too soon.
Speaking of timely politics, “Neighborhood Bully” finds Dylan defending Israel: “The neighborhood bully he just lives to survive / He’s criticized and condemned for being alive / He’s not supposed to fight back, he’s supposed to have thick skin / He’s supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in.” Dylan’s currently on tour, and I can’t help but wonder if he’ll slip it into any of his setlists in the days and weeks ahead.
“License to Kill” wraps up side one, and despite snitching the title from James Bond, this one seems to be about man’s callous attitude toward the world around him. Then again, “Neighborhood Bully” contains the line, “ ‘Cause there’s a noose at his neck and a gun at his back / And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac.” So maybe this one’s just a continuation of the previous track?
Flipping the side, we lead off with “Man of Peace,” propelled forward by Sly and Robbie and – hey, wait a minute, a political theme is beginning to emerge here (I’m shocked … shocked, I tell you). Whether it’s the Fuhrer, the local priest, the Chief of Police, your next-door neighbor or coworker – “He could be standing next to you / The person that you’d notice least / I hear that sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace.”
Peace. Patriotism. Whatever. Damn, four decades later, this album resonates politically way more than it did back in ’83.
At least there’s “Union Sundown,” which … nah, this one, too. Made in the U.S.A. is a good idea, but the reality is that almost everything we wear, drive and eat is made elsewhere, and good jobs are heading to other countries. Blame capitalism and the unions. Sound familiar?
The delicate anguish of “I and I” and “Don’t Fall Apart on Me Tonight” close the record on notes of loneliness and love, respectively. Yeah, the world is in a pretty shitty place, and when all is said and done, we really only have ourselves. But in “Don’t Fall Apart…” (is he singing to the same woman from “Sweetheart Like You”?), it seems like connection with someone else, however fragile, is what we really need to help us through this shitty place.
It all adds up to an album that Rolling Stone’s Christopher Connelly called Dylan’s “best album since the searing Blood on the Tracks,” that the New York Times’ Stephen Holden called “the best-sounding album Mr. Dylan has ever made,” and that cracked the top 10 in the Village’s Voice’s 1983 Pazz & Jop poll of 207 music critics.
Imagine if he hadn’t left Blind Willie out in the cold.
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