![]() It was just an image that popped out as I was sitting around on the couch messing around with the guitar." The character Tom Joad, mentioned in the song's title and narrative, is the protagonist from The Grapes Of Wrath. And it always stayed with me after that, for some reason there was something in that picture that always resonated throughout almost all of my other work. I think I'd read some John Steinbeck, probably earlier than that - in high school and there was something about the film that sort of crystallized the story for me. "That picture I guess I saw in the late seventies and it had a really deep effect on me. In a 1995 interview, Springsteen told Bob Costas that it was the film more than the book that made an impact on him. In 1995, Springsteen got in touch with John Steinbeck's widow Elaine Steinbeck to ask permission to use the name of the character from The Grapes of Wrath. The song also takes inspiration from Woody Guthrie's 1940 song TOM JOAD, which explores the novel's protagonist's life. The references at the end of The Ghost Of Tom Joad album's credits list some of the source materials, including "John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath, written by Nunnally Johnson, based on the novel by John Steinbeck, a Twentieth Century-Fox film." Springsteen's song, however, is set in the 80's or 90's, with contemporary times being likened to Dust Bowl images. THE GHOST OF TOM JOAD was inspired by John Ford's 1940 film adaptation of John Steinbeck's 1939 classic novel The Grapes Of Wrath. Wherever somebody's struggling to be free Where there's somebody fighting for a place to stand Where there's a fight against the blood and hatred in the air Tom said, "Mom, wherever there's a cop beating a guy You got a hole in your belly and a gun in your hand You got a one-way ticket to the promised land Waiting for when the last shall be first and the first shall be last Preacher lights up a butt and he takes a drag He pulls a prayer book out of his sleeping bag I'm sitting down here in the campfire light Shelter line stretching 'round the cornerįamilies sleeping in their cars in the southwestīut nobody's kidding nobody about where it goes Highway patrol choppers coming up over the ridge ![]() Going someplace and there's no going back
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