Infidels - The Songs

The 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 strong religious imagery. An explicit example of this is the opening track, "Jokerman". Along with the Biblical and religious references, however, are lyrics about populists who are too concerned with the superficial, ("Michelangelo could've carved 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 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. 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.

A few critics like Robert Christgau and Bill Wyman claimed that Infidels betrayed a strong, strange dislike for space travel, and it can be heard on the first few lines of "License to Kill." ("Oh, 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 mankind’s relationship to the environment, either on a political scale or a scientific one. A skeptical opinion toward the American space program was shared among other evangelicals of Dylan's generation.

The song "Neighborhood Bully" is often regarded as a defense of Israel. 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. Dylan commented extensively on the song in a 1984 interview with Rolling Stone Magazine. In 2001, the Jerusalem Post described the song as "a favorite among Dylan-loving residents of the territories". Israeli singer Ariel Zilber covered "Neighborhood Bully" in 2005 in a version translated to Hebrew.

"Union Sundown" is a political protest song against imported consumer goods and greed. It displays Dylan's penchant and ability to take a concept and examine it from every angle in a single song, 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..."), 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.").

"I And I", according to author/critic Tim Riley, "updates the Dylan mythos. Even though it substitutes self-pity for the, 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.'" Riley sees the song as an exploration of the distance between Dylan's "inner identity and the public face he wears".

Infidels' closer, "Don't Fall Apart On Me Tonight" stands out on the album as a pure love song. On past albums like John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline, Dylan closed with love songs sung to the narrator's partner, and that tradition is continued with "Don't Fall Apart On Me Tonight", with a chorus that asks "Don't fall apart on me tonight, I just don't think that I could handle it./Don't fall apart on me tonight, Yesterday's just a memory, Tomorrow is never what it's supposed to be/And I need you, yeah, you tonight."