Shot of Love Songwriting Credits by Bob Dylan

Released August 12, 1981, Shot of Love was the third and final album in Dylan's Christian trilogy, following Saved (1980), though it notably broadened its scope to balance secular material alongside explicitly religious songs. Chuck Plotkin served as lead producer, working at Clover Studio from late April through early May 1981, with the sessions reportedly contentious, Dylan preferring rough monitor mixes over Plotkin's polished versions. Dylan wrote all original tracks, and the album's closing song "Every Grain of Sand", an extended meditation on faith and mortality, was singled out for universal praise as one of his finest compositions of the era. The album performed poorly commercially, reaching only No. 33 in the US with approximately 300,000 copies sold, though it fared better in the UK at No. 6. Bono of U2 cited it as one of his favorite Dylan albums, and the record is now recognized as marking Dylan's transition away from explicit evangelism toward the secular concerns that defined his 1983 comeback, Infidels.