Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Springsteen & Morello :: Ghost of Tom Joad


Hat tip to Ben Rebel for sending this link.

Tom Joad, of course, is the main character in John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. Partial lyrics to the song below:

Now Tom said "Mom, wherever there's a cop beatin' a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there's a fight against 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 a decent job or a helpin' hand
Wherever somebody's strugglin' to be free
Look in their eyes Mom you'll see me."

Well the highway is alive tonight
But nobody's kiddin' nobody about where it goes
I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light
With the ghost of old Tom Joad.


Read the book and see the movie.


Henry Fonda as Tom Joad (1940).
.

1 comment:

HTTrainer said...

Well, US'ns are workers, many of us hard workers, too.
But whether we're lookin' for Tom Joad, John Henry or Joe Hill we still got folks that tell us we're not good enough to work for them anymore.
And that's not good, for we're Americans, hard workin' and proud. Trouble is that we've been bamboozled and conned by them folks in "humane" resources for so long to work harder for the company, increase production and we'll all benefit. we start to believe them, especially when they call us in and say, "You done good. Production has increased 10 % but sorry, Joe, we got to let you go. We need fewer people to do the job now.
Makes a man real angry when they've just push you out, don't matter if you done good or not, you're not here anymore, you're there, take it or leave it and good luck to you and yours.