Toward the end of the 1939 John Steinbeck classic The Grapes of Wrath, protagonist Tom Joad gives his final speech to his mother: Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy … I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry an’ they know supper’s ready. An’ when our folks eat the stuff they raise an’ live in the houses they build–why, I’ll be there.
Exploring the hardships faced during the Dust Bowl era of prolonged droughts and dust storms within the Southern Plains regions of the U.S. during the 1930s, The Grapes of Wrath inspired artists like Thomas Hart Benton, Alexandre Hogue, and Grant Wood (“American Gothic”) to explore themes of working-class America and the connection to the land.
The Grapes of Wrath and its subsequent film adaptation in 1940, starring Henry Fonda, also prompted Woody Guthrie to write an ode to the era, “The Ballad of Tom Joad.”
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Inspired by the book and film, Guthrie released “The Ballad of Tom Joad” on his 1940 album The Dust Bowl Ballads, reliving the excessive hardships and desperations during the era,
Ever’body might be just one big soul
Well, it looks that a-way to me
Everywhere that you look, in the day or night
That’s where I’m a-gonna be, Ma
That’s where I’m a-gonna be
Wherever little children are hungry and cry
Wherever people ain’t free
Wherever men are fightin’ for their rights
That’s where I’m a-gonna be, Ma
That’s where I’m a-gonna be”
In 1995, Bruce Springsteen recorded his tribute to Guthrie and the “The Ballad of Tom Joad” with “the Ghost of Tom Joad,” along with an album of the same name. Springsteen’s story revolves around resilience in the face of corruption and injustice and, like Guthrie’s, delivers another anthem of social consciousness.
Shelter line stretching around the corner
Welcome to the new world order
Families sleeping in the 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
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When presented with the Woody Guthrie Prize in 2021, Spingsteen recalled the first time he connected with Guthrie’s music during a time when he felt “strangely hopeless” following the release of his 1978 album Darkness on the Edge of Town.
“It wasn’t until I came across [Guthrie’s] work that I found that hope,” Springsteen told Guthrie’s daughter Nora. “I believed that the veils had been pulled off and what I was seeing was the real country that I live in and what was at stake for the people and citizenry who are my neighbors and friends. It was the first music where I found a reflection of America that I believed to be true.”
He continued, “That drove me deeply, deeply, into a direction that without his influence coming at that exact moment— I was 30 years old, and we began to perform ‘This Land is Your Land’ in concert— I don’t know if I would ever have gotten there. If I would have ever found that kind of hope, that kind of dedication to putting your work into some form of action. I got to thank your pops… I’ll be playing this little guitar and telling my stories for a little while longer.”
Springsteen later recorded a full-band arrangement of ‘The Ghost of Tom Joad” before kicking off his Wrecking Ball Tour in 2012, and since its release, his Guthrie tribute has been covered more than 20 times across genres. Here’s a look at three memorable renditions of the Springsteen classic—including one shared by Springsteen and another folk pioneer.
Rage Against the Machine (2000)
Rage Against the Machine was the first to cover “The Ghost of Tom Joad” and released it as a single in 1997. The band’s cover later appeared on their 2000 album Renegades, and in 2008, RATM guitarist Tom Morello performed the song with Springsteen and the E Street Band during a show in Anaheim, California. Springsteen later rerecorded another version with Morello for his 2014 album High Hopes, which features the guitarist on a majority of the remaining tracks and on vocals for “The Ghost of Tom Joad.”
“I am not a casual Bruce Springsteen fan—I am a big Bruce Springsteen fan,” said Morello. “And ‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’ is one of his best songs. It cuts to the core of his social justice writing. This version starts as a plaintive ballad, which feels like a lament, and becomes a full-bore rocker that feels like a threat.”
Bruce Springsteen and Pete Seeger (2007)
A year before recording “The Ghost of Tom Joad” with Morello, Springsteen also recorded a sobering rendition with Guthrie’s friend and fellow folk Revivalist Pete Seeger in 2007.
A longtime fan of Seeger’s, Springsteen released We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, his interpretation of 13 traditional songs made famous by the folk activist, which won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album. In 2009, Seeger also joined Springsteen to perform Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” during a pre-inauguration concert for President Barack Obama.
“At some point, Pete Seeger decided he’d be a walking, singing reminder of all of America’s history,” said Springsteen during Seeger’s 90th Birthday Celebration at Madison Square Garden in New York City in 2009. “He’d be a living archive of America’s music and conscience, a testament of the power of song and culture to nudge history along, to push American events towards more humane and justified ends. He would have the audacity and the courage to sing in the voice of the people.”
Springsteen continued, “Inside him, he carries a steely toughness that belies that grandfatherly visage, that won’t let him take a step back from the things he believes in. … And he reminds us of our immense failures as well as shining a light toward our better angels and the horizon where the country we have imagined and hold dear, we hope awaits us.”
Elvis Costello and Mumford & Sons, Medley with “Do Re Mi” (2013)
In 2013, Elvis Costello and Mumford & Sons were headlining the Sasquatch Festival in Quincy, Washington, when they were approached by Bono’s One Campaign to help raise awareness for the cause with a song. Over the weekend, they worked on a cover of “The Ghost of Tom Joad” as a folk medley with a touch of Guthrie.
After Marcus Mumford takes on the first verse, Costello joins in and adds on a nod to Guthrie’s “Do Re Mi” for a perfectly milled medley that continues this way—Mumford on Springsteen’s lines and Costello taking Guthrie—with both sharing the chorus.
Photo: Bruce Springsteen performs with The E-Street Band at the Fabulous Fox Theater on September 30, 1978, in Atlanta, Georgia. (Tom Hill/WireImage)
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