
Bob Dylan has lined up a 2026 UK tour with a five-night Royal Festival Hall residency
The tour also visits Bournemouth, Birmingham, Sheffield and Blackpool through November and December.
About This Track
The opening track of Dylan's album, 'Jokerman' presents a figure of moral ambiguity moving through a landscape thick with biblical allusion and apocalyptic dread. The song stacks image upon image: a man casting bread upon waters, fists full of snakes, crowds manipulated, false judges caught in their own webs. Dylan's protagonist is shape-shifter and charlatan, friend to the martyr and the shamed alike, always one step ahead of whatever pursues him. The song's power lies in its refusal to settle. It circles its subject without naming him, piling on attributes and contradictions until the Jokerman becomes less a person than a principle: the force that moves through history wearing different faces, equally at home in scripture and in the street. The chorus offers a kind of hypnotic counterweight to the verses' moral catalogue, a dance rhythm that suggests complicity as much as condemnation. Biblical references sit alongside images of modern violence, the Book of Leviticus neighbour to tear gas and Molotov cocktails, suggesting that the patterns of exploitation and cruelty are older and deeper than any single era.
"Jokerman" is a track by Bob Dylan, from the album Infidels, released 27th October 1983. Full lyrics are available below. Dork has published 1 article about Bob Dylan.
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The tour also visits Bournemouth, Birmingham, Sheffield and Blackpool through November and December.

Bon Dylan will be Vernon's sole live outing this year with a rotating ensemble
They'll both play on 12th July.