THE GHOST OF TOM JOAD

Live 19 Feb 2003 version

[Spoken:] This was a song I wrote originally for E Street Band record, it was uh... We did a Greatest Hits record, I put an extra couple songs on it. I was trying to find a song I could write for the band. The band will always makes me think... ??? for some reason that was make me look outside, and uh... I think they sort of made─ I don't know, they, they give me a certain kind of courage when it comes to, to moral writing. Maybe it's because you know you're gonna up there with eight or nine other people that are gonna be standing alongside of you when you shout those words out or something. And long, long friendships and uh... Well there's something like when I go and write for them I always, I always open up... it sort of end up like ???, you know. And I ended up─ didn't get to write it for the band but I ended up kind of moving toward a different direction. I went back for some narrative writing. And uh... I'd spent a lot of time in California, where I uh... Fascinating place to live actually beyond the... Well there's ??? joking once, 77 in New York is, uh, 77 in California, and when it's 20 degrees in New York is 77 in Los Angeles, it's a hard 10 degrees in New York, it's 77 in Los Angeles. The fellas never asked─ many interesting people talk to me about this 77, so─ (cheers). A little Los Angeles passion, but uh... (chuckles) But I actually I enjoyed living there a lot. You know, when I went to California it just is... is a fascinating state, it felt like it was on the forefront of what the country was gonna feel like and look like in the future. And uh... I got interested in a lot of what was going on and around the border and the migrant workers and... I wrote a series of songs about them but anyway.

Yeah men walking 'long the railroad tracks
Going someplace, there's no going back
Highway patrol choppers coming up over the ridge
Hot soup on a campfire under the bridge
Shelter line stretching 'round the corner
Yeah welcome to the new world order
Families sleeping in their cars in the southwest
No home, no job, no peace, no rest

Well the highway is alive tonight
But nobody's kidding nobody about where it goes
I'm sitting down here in the campfire light
Searching for the ghost of Tom Joad

He pulls a prayer book out of his sleeping bag
Preacher lights up a butt and he takes a drag
Waiting for when the last shall be first and the first shall be last
In a cardboard box 'neath the underpass
Got a one-way ticket to the promised land
You got a hole in your belly and a gun in your hand
Sleeping on a pillow of solid rock
Bathing in the city aqueduct

Well the highway is alive tonight
Where it's headed everybody knows
I'm sitting down here in the campfire light
Waiting on the ghost of Tom Joad

Now Tom said, "Mom, wherever there's a cop beating a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there's a fight against the blood and hatred in the air
Well look for me, Mom, I'll be there
Wherever somebody's fighting for a place to stand
Or a decent job or a helping hand
Wherever somebody's struggling to be free
Look in their eyes, Mom, you'll see me"

The highway is alive tonight
But nobody's kidding nobody about where it goes
I'm sitting down here in the campfire light
With the ghost of old Tom Joad

Info

The above lyrics are for the live 19 Feb 2003 performance of THE GHOST OF TOM JOAD at Somerville Theatre in Somerville, MA, during the first of the two DoubleTake magazine benefit shows. The song was played in a solo acoustic guitar and harmonica arrangement.

Promotional poster for the 19-20 Feb 2003 shows at Somerville Theatre, Somerville, MA

Ticket stub for the 19 Feb 2003 show at Somerville Theatre, Somerville, MA

DoubleTake Magazine Benefit

Founded by Harvard psychiatrist Robert Coles, DoubleTake magazine has been in business since 1995, but started facing financial problems a few years later. Springsteen's relationship with the publication goes back to late 1997 when he was interviewed by Will Percy (nephew of the late Walker Percy, a writer/novelist Springsteen admired) at Springsteen's farmhouse in Rumson, NJ. Part of the audio-recorded interview was printed in the March 1998 issue of the magazine. The interview is probably one of the most philosophical of Springsteen's career -- it dealt with the effect books and movies have on Springsteen's writing and the culture of celebrity, among other things. Springsteen also became friend with magazine founder Robert Coles when the two met in 1998. He praised his book A Secular Mind, and even attended one of his classes in Harvard. In November 2004 Coles published his book Bruce Springsteen's America - The People Listening, A Poet Singing.

Robert Coles -- Bruce Springsteen's America - The People Listening, A Poet Singing

Tickets for the two fundraisers were priced at $500 and billed as "An Intimate Evenings Of Music And Conversation With Bruce Springsteen". These were solo acoustic shows, played on acoustic guitar (or piano on a few songs), held at the small Somerville Theatre (900 seats capacity). Springsteen chatted between songs, and closed out each night with a Q&A session, taking questions from the audience. The unprecedented "conversation" element of the shows made them unique to Springsteen fans.

The almost one million dollars raised from the ticket sales went to the non-profit DoubleTake Community Service Organization Corporation, publishers of DoubleTake magazine, which owed $600,000 to vendors and contributors. "The concert was a success beyond our wildest dreams," managing editor Kirk Kicklighter commented, "[But] we never really had a plan for what we were going to do after the concert." By the fall of 2004, the magazine was no longer publishing, officially put on "hiatus".

Available Versions

List of available versions of THE GHOST OF TOM JOAD on this website:

Page last updated: 22 Sep 2016