Track Listing

1. Ghost Of Tom Joad
2. Straight Time
3. Highway 29
4. Youngstown
5. Sinola Cowboys
6. Line
7. Balbo Park
8. Dry Lightning
9. New Timer
10. Across The Border
11. Galveston Bay
12. Best Was Never Enough

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4692 in Music
• Released on: 2000-01-10
• Number of discs: 1

From Amazon.com
Bruce Springsteen followed his muse on this haunting 1995 release. Perhaps that's why it barely made a dent in the marketplace, even while it thrilled the faithful who were willing to take another dark, Nebraska-like journey with him. It's abundantly clear that Springsteen had been soaking himself in the work of John Steinbeck and Woody Guthrie during the writing of The Ghost of Tom Joad, but their combined influence is found on more than just the title track. It's all over these windblown songs (including the haunting "Dry Lightning" and "the seminal "Youngstown") and their hard-scrabble protagonists. Not the Boss's biggest record, but certainly one of his best. --Michael Ruby

CD Description
THE GHOST OF TOM JOAD isn't a rock and roll record. Named for the protagonist of John Steinbeck's Depression-era novel THE GRAPES OF WRATH (Springsteen cites John Ford's film version in the booklet) and performed largely on an acoustic guitar with the occasional support of an Appalachian mountain fiddle and pedal steel guitar, it's part folk album, part protest record, part short-story collection.
It'll inevitably be compared to NEBRASKA, the similarly stark song-cycle Springsteen foisted on an unsuspecting world in 1982. Yet TOM JOAD is more of an arranged album, with careful guitar arpeggios supported by an eerie bed of sustained synthesizer chords (played by E Street Band veteran Danny Federici and Springsteen) and a few full-band folk arrangements. It's also more of an explicit statement. Whereas the characters in NEBRASKA were lost souls wreaking havoc on the highways and backroads of the badlands, those on TOM JOAD are a mix of working-class Americans and immigrants running across (or into) the country in search of a pot of gold that isn't there. The characters are modern, but the stories are as old as the Great Depression that Steinbeck chronicled--Springsteen's message being that after all these years we're still knee-deep in it.
There are some familiar Springsteen vignettes--the conflicted friendship of two border guards in "The Line", the family line of steelworkers in "Youngstown"--but the characters themselves are new, and the clearness of their anger is almost radical. Pondering the corporate bosses who built a steel plant in Youngstown, used up the local resources, then walked away, the narrator's father says, "Them big boys did what Hitler couldn't do". Springsteen does offer the working class a chance at redemption. "Galveston Bay" brings togethera Vietnamese fisherman, a disgruntled Vietnam vet and the Ku Klux Klan; by the time it's over, two Klansmen are dead and the American vet has learned, if not to overcome his prejudice, to at least live and work side by side with his Vietnamese compatriot. It may be a not-so-veiled lesson for the flag-waving patriots who misinterpreted Springsteen's anthem "Born In The U.S.A".

Customer Reviews

Intimate music.
This is one of Springsteens best albums. It is in the same vein as 'Nebraska' and has echos of 'Devils and Dust' to come. It is supremely chilled out and very relaxing to listen to, his voice perfectly pitched to tell the stories in each song. This album contains such gems as the title track, 'Youngstown', 'Dry lightning' and 'Best wasn't good enough' to end the album on a perfect note. I tend to feel that the album is best listened to in it's entirety to get the full benefit from it though. This is Springsteen doing what he does best, which is telling a beautiful story, backed by great music, simple as that. Don't buy it expecting the Stadium anthems of the 80's, but do expect some of the best music that Bruce has ever put out.

Bruce at midnight
This is no ordinary Springsteen album. It is remarkable for its arrangements: spare sober, acoustic. Its typical Springsteen for the stories behind the songs; full of American people who try hard to make it, who chase that American dream & meet tragedy on the way. Springsteen makes a case for the people, who are somtimes forced to act illegally without much choice. Here he touches a raw nerve in American society.
Hauntingly beautiful, Spingsteen sings poignantly, without his usual powerful, bombastic sound. Much in line with I'm on fire from Born in the USA. So much the better in my opinion. An album which gets you, without much force, and which leaves a lasting impression.

1995's landmark moment: an album of sparse and tender beauty
Bruce Springsteen: rebel soul, rock renegade, the guy from Philly who only ever sang about cars n' girls; his is a legacy tainted by misinformed paradoy and undeserved malign. In the 70s he was already unstoppable; in the 80s he adopted a commercial bent that propelled him into the realms of superstar (& beyond) - by 1995, with a fair wedge stashed down in Asbury Park, Springsteen had made his millions, and he'd grown old. He didn't need to sing about racing the caddy no more, nor about dating Bobby Jean or sippin' beers after the game. Instead he put it all aside, dispensed with the E-Street sound completely, picked up his acoustic guitar, and made an album from the brink of desolation, a subtle Dylannesque masterpiece, laced with simple, lax melancholy and brimming with wealths of experience, nostalgia and knowing. Never self-indulgent, 'Tom Joad' showcases The Boss' woefully overlooked songsmanship - it's the greatest record he's ever made. A stylistic departure from past releases, and then some, this is the sound of a man unafraid to sound his age - this is grown up music. Springsteen has been a crucial mouthpiece for blue-collar America for the last 30 years. In assesing his career, let us hope that the inclement critic will turn here in his final pause: a phenominal legacy, and a totally gorgeous, unrefined, bare-bones folk wonder-work: dripping with honesty, sheer grit and irrepressable subtlety. The soundtrack to your salvation: invest - it'll enrich your life. It certainly has, mine.