I was remarking of Dylan’s nasty curve ball with the track – Lenny Bruce on the Christian record – Shot of Love; it’s just like what he did with today’s track Neighborhood Bully on the 1983 Infidels secular record. As I wrote back then, today’s track is my preferred of the two.
Neighborhood Bully can be interpreted 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. Neighborhood Bully to this day is regarded one of Dylan’s most polemic tracks amongst fans. But I remain unapologetic of my enjoyment of this song.
So, during an elongated period the converted Dylan did 3 devout Christian records and then the next minute he is captured by the Press as a Minnesotan that went to Israel. Anyhow’s, we now have the Infidels record.
Dylan said in an interview for Newsweek in 1997:
“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.“
[Verse 1]
Well, the neighborhood bully, he’s just one man
His enemies say he’s on their land
They got him outnumbered about a million to one
He got no place to escape to, no place to run
He’s the neighborhood bully
[Verse 2]
The neighborhood bully 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
He’s the neighborhood bully
[Verse 3]
The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land
He’s wandered the earth an exiled man
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn
He’s always on trial for just being born
He’s the neighborhood bully
Dylan is often jocular and non – acute in his own interpretations when pressed by the ‘Press’. I do think he was harnessing some ancestral connection with his Jewish hereditary, but he would never admit that. It’s only in the words you can derive his ‘meaning’; the same way Leonard Cohen did in one of his last great songs – You Want it Darker. After a long time in Buddhism, Cohen also went back to his Jewish roots and that’s made abundantly clear in his final album where his voice is recorded on ‘his death bed’.
“Hineni, hineni, I’m ready my Lord,”
The critical reaction of Infidels was the strongest for Dylan in years, almost universally hailed for its songwriting and performances. Dylan initially wanted to produce the album himself, but feeling that technology had passed him by, he approached a number of contemporary artists before Dylan hired Mark Knopfler.
References:
1. Infidels (Bob Dylan album) – Wikipedia
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