"Neighborhood Bully" is a deep cut from the 1983 Bob Dylan album, Infidels. Maybe Infidels itself is a deep cut. Although the album (vinyl and cassette) reached #20 on the US album charts (#6 in the England and #1 in Norway), the songs are not widely known outside of Dylan stans.
"Jokerman"
"Sweetheart Like You"
"Neighborhood Bully"
"License to Kill"
"Man of Peace"
"Union Sundown"
"I and I"
"Don't Fall Apart on Me Tonight"
Dylan himself doesn't seem to be a great fan of "Neighborhood Bully. Of the over 600 songs he has sung in concert (according to setlistfm), he has never played that song. (Corrections welcome!)
The tune was recorded on April 19, 1983 with overdubs on May 8 and May 10 features:
Bob Dylan – guitar, harmonica, keyboards, vocals, production
Alan Clark – keyboards
Sly Dunbar – drums, percussion
Mark Knopfler – guitar, production
Robbie Shakespeare – bass guitar
Mick Taylor – guitar
Here are some reviews and view of "Neighborhood Bully."
The Music
1983 Rolling Stone wrote "When Dylan cranks it up, the results are no less satisfying; Infidels‘ two fierce rockers are as wacked-out as “From a Buick Six” or “Tombstone Blues.” In “Neighborhood Bully,” Dylan sings with the fire he showed on Before the Flood, spitting out lyrics as Taylor and Knopfler duel in the foreground; Dylan’s neighborhood bully is an unappreciated crusader; he breaks up lynch mobs, disrupts bomb factories, yet “A license to kill him/Is given out to every maniac.”
The Lyrics
2009 Tony Atwood: If you are going to do a political song, you don’t have to be balanced (no such song ever is), and your facts don’t have to be inclusive (ditto). But you have to avoid lines which are just so incredibly wrong that they bring the whole song down and make those who don’t believe dismiss what you have said.
Think of “Times they are a Changing”. It brings us all together, and joins everyone. “Neighborhood Bully” just pushes people further apart.
Review of the Review
2017 Joost Nillissen : Approximately nine years ago Tony Attwood wrote a distasteful commentary on "Neighborhood Bully." I use the word ‘distasteful’ partly in jest, of course, as Mr Attwood claimed there was something distasteful about this song. Everybody is entitled to his or her opinion. “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” (Somebody said that, I forgot who). (blogger note: attributed to Voltaire but not confirmed)
Review of Dylan's grasp of 'politics'
2020 Jochen Markhorst: Dylan has a rather private, simplistic conception of the meaning of the word “politics." He seems to think it means something like “being active for an official political party”. Already in 1965, in an English interview with Ray Coleman, he (Dylan) argues quite naively:
“No politics. It would be just impossible for me to stand up and be associated with any political party. They’re all crap – every single one of them is crap. They all think they are better than the next one."
In that light, Dylan’s commentary on the through and through political “Neighborhood Bully” is easier to grasp. Nonsensical, but still traceable within his own, simple-minded definition of “politics."
The punch line to the last three reviews (all from the site Untold Dylan) is this footnote:
Following a range of comments about matters concerning Israel, I have decided to stop publishing comments on matters relating to Israel. I’ve published a fair number, and have only rejected the ones that are highly abusive towards myself. But I don’t think any of the points change anyone’s mind or expand the debate any further, and so I think that’s enough.
If social media followed that model, it would be all cats and vacations (but not to Israel.)
Bob on the Mount of Olives, Jerusalem, 1983
Let's address Tony Atwood complaint about whether the "facts" of the song.
It is a song and not a scholarly treatise on an incredibly complicated and emotional subject. It is also Bob Dylan who is not known for his scrupulous fact checking.
CLICK HERE FOR DYLAN'S RECORDING
The lyrics with commentary
Well, the neighborhood bully, he's just one man
His enemies say he's on their land: TRUE
They got him outnumbered about a million to one / Complicated, as many enemies live in countries that have formal or informal agreements with Israel. Outside of Jordan and Egypt which recognize the existence of Israel, there are 7 entities in the immediate area that do not. Syria, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and the Palestinian territories. The combined population of these countries is 250 million. Israel's population is 10 million. That is only 25 to 1. If you want to be ungenerous (and some people are) there are 1.8 billion followers of Islam who may be ill disposed toward Israel. That would still only be 250 to 1. So that is UNTRUE, technically.
He got no place to escape to, no place to run/ While scrolling on the site Threads where I saw a random post that included the slogan"From the River to the Sea." I asked what would happen to the Israelis. The random stranger suggested that those who have dual citizenship could return to those countries and the balance could be resettled in the United States. Dylan is right about this one.
He's the neighborhood bully.
The neighborhood bully he just lives to survive
He's criticized and condemned for being alive TRUE.
He's not supposed to fight back, he's supposed to have thick skin This line can be seen as directed toward Israel's sometime allies. It is the view that says Israel should not be proactive in it's desire for security. It speaks to proportionality in Israel's response. TRUE.
He's supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in
He's the neighborhood bully.
The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land / Not every land but many. Over 700,000 Jews left Arab countries after the 1948 Arab/Israeli war. I've attached a timeline of Jewish expulsions from Wikipedia listing which begins in 733 BCE to 2021. There are 85 listed from the grotesque in WW2 to the absurd (there is one Jew left in Yemen). There is also an anti-Semitic right wing meme 109/110. 109 referring to the numbers of countries that have expelled Jews and 110 being the aspirational hope of the Jews being expelled from the US. MOSTLY TRUE
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.
Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize Really Bob...old women. That's the best you could do. /LAME
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad: In 1981, the Israeli Air Force destroyed a nuclear reactor in Iraq. Iran attacked the same site in 1980./ MOSTLY TRUE. Some nations were glad.
The bombs were meant for him. He was supposed to feel bad
He's the neighborhood bully.
Well, the chances are against it, and the odds are slim
That he'll live by the rules that the world makes for him
'Cause there's a noose at his neck and a gun at his back /ALL TOO TRUE: From 1971 to 1982, the Palestinian Liberation Organization moved their operations to Southern Lebanon and began ground attacks that culminated in the 1982 Lebanon war. Prior to that war, Israel fought in 1947, 1956, 1967 and 1973. Since then Israel fought in the following....
First Intifada (1987–1993)
Second Intifada (2000–2005)
2006 Lebanon War (summer 2006)
Gaza War or Operation Cast Lead (December 2008 – January 2009)
2012 Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip or Operation Pillar of Defense (November 2012)
2014 Gaza War or Operation Protective Edge (July–August 2014)
2021 Israel–Palestine crisis or Operation Guardian of the Walls (May 2021)
2023 Israel–Hamas war (October 2023- )
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac /Terrorists, militants, freedom fighters...whatever the designation there is a license to kill Israelis. Some are maybe insane but most are aware of what they are doing. Sounds to me like a poor choice of words in service of a rhyme. NO DECISION.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Well, he got no allies to really speak of /The United States has been an ally since 1948. NOT TRUE
What he gets he must pay for, he don't get it out of love
He buys obsolete weapons and he won't be denied /Maybe in 1948 but since then Israel has benefited from advanced weapon systems. Especially Iron Dome (2011 -present) Too late for Bob's song but this statement was NOT TRUE in 1983.
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side TRUE
He's the neighborhood bully.
Well, he's surrounded by pacifists who all want peace
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease
Now, they wouldn't hurt a fly. To hurt one they would weep
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep /This sequence implies that anti-war activists are a 5th column that seeks peace for the express purpose of lulling Israel into inaction. That may be a part of the Palestinian resistance but I doubt that the majority of peace activists have that as their mission. There are legitimately strong feelings toward the suffering caused by any war. NOT TRUE.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Every empire that's enslaved him is gone
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon /Maybe not every Empire....
He's made a garden of paradise in the desert sand /Israel has been economically and successful since their independence. Paradise? Not so much.
In bed with nobody, under no one's command
He's the neighborhood bully.
Now his holiest books have been trampled upon
No contract that he signed was worth that what it was written on /I will devote a blog post to Israel's history with "contracts,"agreements, truces and ceasefires with its neighbors, Europe, the US, China, Russia et al. Dylan's lyric is EXAGGERATED. While there is strong anti-Israeli sentiment in Egypt and Jordan, the peace treaties have held. Egypt since 1979 and Jordan since 1994. Whether that continues, especially in Jordan bears watching. There are over 2 million Palestinians in Jordan or nearly 20% of a population of 11 million.
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health
He's the neighborhood bully.
What's anybody indebted to him for?
Nothing, they say. He just likes to cause war /Israel may or not like to cause war but have been in wars nearly every 10 years since its founding. The WARS are REAL.
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed /This is also a topic that I want to explore. Especially the degree to which religion especially literal readings of the Bible and the Koran make the internal politics of the Middle East especially fraught with intransigence. And the United States.
They wait for this bully like a dog waits for feed
He's the neighborhood bully.
What has he done to wear so many scars?/A question that has bedeviled Jews and non-Jews for millenia. The Jew has (and is being called), a Christ killer, a Prophet killer, a tool of the Capitalist class, a polluter of pure Aryan blood and more recently a Genocidal killer.
Does he change the course of rivers? Does he pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill
Running out the clock, time standing still In what is a gross exaggeration, I think that many Arabs in the region believe that the Israelis will go the way of the British, The Ottoman Empire, the Crusaders as part of the "shifting sands" of the regions. Many Israelis prior to October 7 wanted time to stand still. To be able to dance in the desert 3 miles for the Israeli/Gaza border. TIME WILL TELL.
Neighborhood bully.
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