The Ghost of Tom Joad

by

Bruce Springsteen

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If there were any justice in this world, this album would've sold the 11 million copies that Born In The U.S.A. did, due in no small part to its widely misunderstood title track. Alas, as Springsteen proposes on this album, there is no justice. While Springsteen's best-known and best-selling music may always remain his early songs filled with cars, girls, and the dreams of youth, and while that may be the image that most people have of the man, this album is undoubtedly the work of a mature genius. Not since the early Bob Dylan records has the seamy underbelly of the American life been explored so thoroughly and heart-breakingly in popular song. Influenced, obviously, by John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (actually, the movie adaptation, as one sees in the linear notes) as well as other literary and news items focusing on immigrants, the working class, and the downtrodden - as well as drawing upon previous songsters who have explored this territory, such as Dylan and Woody Guthrie - The Ghost of Tom Joad is a set of story songs, done in the heart-breaking and plaintive way that only Springsteen could do them. The stories are mosly set in California, often near the Mexican border, and involve the deeds of illegal aliens and other working class heroes involved in America's secret economy. Musically, this album is bleak and involved mainly Springsteen alone on acoustic guitar and occasionally punctuated with harmonica, as on his Nebraska album; however, a few songs feature other players, including some intriguingly subtle keyboard work that fits the mood so well you hardly know it's there. Springsteen sings these songs in the slurring drawl that they deserve, paying little heed to pitch or meter, and they can be hard to understand at times. This album doesn't make for easy listening. One cannot play this as background music, driving music, or at a party like one can many of The Boss's records with The E Street Band: this is definitely an album that you must devote your full attention to. It is one of the few records that truly deserves to be listened to when you're alone at night in your room with the lights off. Be prepared to cry, be prepared to feel your heart ache - be prepared to be moved. One of the true masterpieces of American rock music, and a criminally overlooked record which I hope some day will receive the praise it is due.

Tom Joad followed a short E-Street reunion for the greatest hits album. It is rumored that both Tom Joad and Youngstown were written with the E-Street in mind. These two songs are coincidentally the only two songs on the album that feature a strong melodic structure. This is immediately the biggest weakness of the album. Tom Joad was a small step up from Human Touch and Lucky Town for Springsteen, but still lacked the compelling quality of his earlier albums. Where Nebraska and Tunnel of Love, his first two "solo acoustic" outings, were characterized by strong R&R rhythms or lively melodies, the songs on Joad are more declamations.

The strength of this album lies not in the songs but in the lyrics and the issues they address. Once again Springsteen confronts us with a darker side of the American dream. The tales on Joad are the tales of those left behind. The title song refers to the Steinbeck Dustbowl novel Grapes of Wrath, even though Springsteen admits his source is more the Ford movie than the book. In the lyrics we find Springsteen paraphrasing the climax of the novel in which Tom Joad plans to go out and organize workers movements.

"Now Tom said "Mom, wherever there's a cop beatin' a guy

Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries

Where there's a fight 'gainst the blood and hatred in the air

Look for me Mom I'll be there

Wherever there's somebody fightin' for a place to stand

Or decent job or a helpin' hand

Wherever somebody's strugglin' to be free

Look in their eyes Mom you'll see me.""

This paraphrase sets the tone for the record. Over all the songs the Ghost of Tom Joad lurks. Be it either with the ex-convict unable to escape his past in Straight Time or the factory worker who feels more at home in "the blast furnaces of hell" in Youngstown, Tom Joad is there. Be it with the Mexican immigrants who get killed in an accident while chemically making cocaine or the New Timer leaving his family in a search for work, Joad watches over them like a patron saint. The album closes with a man's somber reminiscences of childhood rhymes and sayings.

"Remember, "A quitter never wins and a winner never quits"

"The sun don't shine on a sleepin' dog's ass"

And all the rest of that stuff

But for you my best was never good enough"

And that about sums it up for some of us.