License to POLL: Which is the best track on Bob Dylan's 'Infidels'?

I was going to say his divorce might have had something to do with it, but that wasn't finalized until 1992. (I don't have any experience with it, but maybe the costs add up earlier?)

When people called the 1978 tour the alimony tour, that wasn't just a joke - he really was in need of money due to the cost of the divorce AND sinking in way too much of his own money into Renaldo and Clara. (Keeping the editing/post-production up and running for any film for two or three years will be very costly, much moreso when one person is bearing the expense instead of a large company.)

Simmons recalled in an interview with For Bass Players Only back in 2018 that everything started when he simply made a phone call. The musician said that he is a very linear person and he is delusionally fearless. Because of that personality, even that he was thinking ‘Why the fuck would he want to write with me?’ he decided to call Dylan’s manager because maybe for some reason he would like to. “Throw caution to the wind, and dive into the deep end of the pool. So I called his manager, a good guy, ‘“Hi, Can I speak with Bob?'”, the manager then replied: “‘What do you wanna talk to him about?'” and Simmons said: “‘I, uh, I want to write a song with Bob.”

All of the sudden, within two days, an unmarked van shows up at my house. Bob gets out with an acoustic guitar and tells his driver ‘I’ll see you at the end of the day’. We start strumming! It was just like that. And he was asking ME, and this is in the box set, ‘So, how do you write songs?’.

“Well, you know, I come up with stuff, and Paul writes stuff.” Bob replied: “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then the other guys play it?”. Gene answered: “Well, I usually tell them what parts to play.” He goes, “You do?” And I couldn’t believe I was having this discussion. Yeah, we were talking about how we write songs. It’s still a life highlight, if you see what I mean.”

love the idea of Bob telling his van driver, "Pick me at 4, I'm writing with Gene here."

Ah, here's the gem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZr2TWiE69I

It was news to me that Lou Reed also wrote a Kiss song (or more than one?).

I'd also rank "Jokerman" among my faves, fwiw

‘Why the fuck would he want to write with me?’

Classic Gene

Kinda reminds me: "Do you play jazz?" He asks his interviewer that in the monster Songwriters on Songwriting, and then describes how he sometimes uses patterns from jazz in writing--by which he may mean adaptation, since he said somewhere else, "First of all, I'm not a melodist." He says a lot of stuff, probably works different ways over the many years etc. Pretty good talk, anyway.
As for collabs, here are brief descriptions of five:
https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/bob-dylans-greatest-collaborations-100538/ Over on Rolling Bootlegs, I think, birdistheword prefers another version of "Brownsville Girl," with a different town in the title, doesn't like the punched-in guitar break, for inst., but I don't mind it, esp. in a patchwork song, from a conversation about trying to remember something in a Gregory Peck Western, also about swap meets etc.
Speaking of his work w Jacques Levy referenced in there, Claudia Levy launched a suit re royalities, but after D. sold his catalog, which. hmmm, don't know how that's turned out---anyway, good coverage here https://www.billboard.com/pro/bob-dylan-lawsuit-co-writer-song-catalog-sale/ (and good comments about that on bob dylan: desire, the poll)
More interesting to me: her friendship with Dylan, incl. before either had met Jacques--she introduced them---and some stuff about working conditions---she should write a book, however things go or have concluded litigation-wise---pretty good interview with her here:https://dylanlive.substack.com/p/jacques-levys-wife-explains-the-late

Oh, re "Jammin' Me," collab w Petty mentioned in that Stone shortie: it was okay, in a predictable way, think it might have been on a 12" single I had w "Band of the Hand," which he may have written all of, though mainly effective as shuffle for group vocals which a movie reviewer compared to a screech own--it was for and recurred in a Michael Mann flick, of the same title as song, I think, pretty much just "Ban-nd of the Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand," with slide etc., but that was enough.

screech owl, I meant.

"Jammin' Me" was Petty and Campbel mostly; Dylan added a few pop culture lines.

I don't know if it's ilx, but Jokerman's chorus sounds like the Top Gun Anthem

"Jammin' Me" was Petty and Campbel mostly; Dylan added a few pop culture lines.

It might be why he rarely performed it (he also hates, incorrectly, Let Me Up).