S1 Ep5: 'Infidels'
Bob Dylan: Album By Album
benburrell
4.8 • 797 Ratings
🗓️ 29 June 2018
⏱️ 25 minutes
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Summary
On this episode we look at the album that saw Bob return to secular music after his infamous Christian period. It would be a watershed moment in his career.
Here's Dylan's brilliant 'Jokerman' Letterman performance mentioned in the episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP85Uc6H79U
and the rehearsal for the show too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP--PD1BcGE
The quotes in this episode came from Clinton Heylin's excellent book 'Behind the Shades' which you can buy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Behind-Shades-Anniversary-Clinton-Heylin/product-reviews/0571272401/ref=cmcrdpdhist2?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=twostar&reviewerType=all_reviews#reviews-filter-bar
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(I don't own the music)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, my name is Ben Borrell and welcome back to Bob Dylan album by album, a podcast that takes |
| 0:05.6 | an in-depth look into each Bob Dylan studio recording record by record. Thank you for following us on |
| 0:11.2 | Instagram and Twitter. If you haven't done so already, you can find us at Bob Dylan podcast. |
| 0:15.9 | And if you enjoy this episode, feel free to give it a rating and feel free to subscribe as well. |
| 0:20.7 | This is episode |
| 0:21.5 | number five and this is all about an album that would be a watershed moment for Dylan. It would |
| 0:26.3 | usher in a new stage of his career and also feature some of his most interesting collaborations. |
| 0:30.9 | This is 1983's Infidates. |
| 0:33.3 | My shoes that come from Singapore My flesh shots from Taiwan |
| 0:39.6 | My table cars from Malaysia |
| 0:45.2 | My Bill Buggles from the Amazon |
| 0:48.6 | Coming off the back of Bob's infamous Born Again period |
| 0:51.9 | Which featured a trio of Christian-themed albums In the form of slow train coming, saved and shot of love, Dylan would return |
| 0:57.8 | to secular music in style here. And while there's still a large amount of religious imagery |
| 1:01.7 | found on these eight tracks, they're mainly used to illustrate more temporal themes such as love, |
| 1:06.2 | the downfall of mankind and world politics. When Bob entered New York's Power Station |
| 1:10.3 | Studios on April |
| 1:11.3 | the 11th, 1983, he knew this was an important LP. He had seen those previous trio of albums |
| 1:16.7 | reducing from a highly profitable artist to a possible faded icon. Thankfully, this album would |
| 1:21.5 | start a long-winded recovery. Musically, that recovery takes the form of a slightly strange mix |
| 1:26.6 | of classic guitar rock licks |
| 1:28.5 | with a backdrop of reggae instrumentation all encased in very crisp 80-sounding production. |
... |
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