Though he has never entirely abandoned religious imagery, Infidels gained much attention for its focus on more personal themes of love and loss, in addition to commentary on the environment and geopolitics.

Infidels was produced by Mark Knopfler, best known as the frontman of the band Dire Straits, and who had previously played guitar on Dylan's Slow Train Coming.

Dylan initially wanted to produce the album himself, but feeling that technology had passed him by, he approached a number of contemporary artists who were more at home in a modern recording studio.

Having been introduced to Taylor the previous summer, Dylan had developed a friendship with him that resulted in the guitarist hearing the Infidels material first during the months leading up to the April sessions.

A number of critics have called Jokerman a sly political protest, addressed to an antichrist-like[11] figure, a "manipulator of crowds … a dream twister".

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."

Events in modern Jewish secular history are noted as well, such as the Jews' historic role in the advancement of medicine ("took sickness and disease and turned them into health").

[citation needed] In 1983, Dylan visited Israel again, but for the first time allowed himself to be photographed there, including a shot at Jerusalem's open-air synagogue wearing a yarmulkah and Jewish phylacteries, and tallith.

[19] A few critics like Robert Christgau and Bill Wyman claimed that Infidels betrayed a strong, strange dislike for space travel, and that it can be heard on the first few lines of "License to Kill".

A harsh indictment accusing mankind of imperialism and a predilection for violence, the song deals specifically with humanity's relationship to the environment, either on a political scale or a scientific one, beginning with the first line: "Man thinks because he rules the Earth/He can do with it as he please."

In the song, Dylan examines the subject from several different angles, 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/Though I guess that's better left unsaid"), 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?

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").

Even though it substitutes self-pity for the [pessimism found throughout Infidels], 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.

While Dylan was known to be prolific and had numerous outtakes for most of his albums, Infidels in particular garnered considerable controversy over the years regarding its final selection of songs.

"On the surface, 'Blind Willie McTell' is about the landscape of the blues," writes Tim Riley, "and the figures Dylan pays respects to on his 1962 debut.

But it's also about the landscape of pop, and how an aging persona like Dylan might feel as he casts his experienced gaze over the road he's walked.

'Nobody sings the blues like Blind Willie McTell' becomes a way of saying how Dylan feels displaced not just by the industry … but by the music he calls home."

Clinton Heylin gives "Blind Willie McTell" a more ambitious interpretation, describing it as "the world's eulogy, sung by an old bluesman recast as St. John the Divine".

"[22] Dylan spent roughly a month on remixing and overdubbing, holding a number of sessions in June re-recording vocal tracks using newly rewritten lyrics.

While Infidels was better received than its predecessor, Shot of Love, Graham Lock of New Musical Express still referred to Dylan as "culturally a spent force … a confused man trying to rekindle old fires.

"[31] Rolling Stone and The Village Voice critic Robert Christgau was not impressed either, writing that Dylan had "turned into a hateful crackpot".

[32] Greil Marcus dismissed it many years later as another "bad [album] that made no sense, didn't hang together, had no point, and did not need to exist".

Indeed, critics were unanimous in praising the overall sound, "one case where the streamlined production doesn't seem to work against the rugged authority he can still command as a singer," wrote Tim Riley.

Music critic Bill Wyman conceded that "the songs are mature and complex" even though "melodically they are similar sounding and the affair as a whole still has echoes of his crackpot Christian days.

Years later, when outtakes like "Someone's Got a Hold of My Heart", "Blind Willie McTell" and "Foot of Pride" began to circulate, the album's stature would in some ways grow, becoming a missed opportunity at a potential masterpiece to some critics like Rob Bowman and Clinton Heylin.

And Dylan gave her the unreleased song "Clean Cut Kid" for her debut album Midnight Mission (A&M Records).

The combo first performed an unrehearsed version of Sonny Boy Williamson's "Don't Start Me to Talking", then a radically different arrangement of "License To Kill".