“Jokerman” by Bob Dylan

"Jokerman" opens Infidels, Bob Dylan's 1983 album, and it's a heavy-weather song full of biblical imagery that people have also read as political allegory. Dylan told Kurt Loder in 1984 that it came to him in the Caribbean, where he kept a boat, and that it was a mystical thing, sparked by the ancient-looking shapes and shadows of the islands and by local spirits called jumbis.

He cut it in April 1983 and produced it alongside Mark Knopfler, with Neil Dorfsman recording, Josh Abbey engineering and Ian Taylor on the mix. A single followed in June 1984, backed with a live "Isis" from the film Renaldo and Clara. George Lois directed the video, with Larry Sloman producing, and Dylan lip-syncs through the chorus. It has since turned up on several of his greatest-hits packages.

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