The Ghost of Tom Joad

Welcome to Day 10 of our 12-day examination of the 12 songs on Bruce Springsteen's new album, High Hopes. As we indicated at the start, rather than a straight review, we're having a running dialogue based around each song as we listen to it. 

So. Day 10, Song 10: "The Ghost of Tom Joad."

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Dan Tapper

Ghosts!!!

Scott Peterson

Hey, the album's about to get good again. Is this the most backloaded album he's ever done?
Born in the USA. Maybe The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle. Otherwise, I'm going to say it is.

Dan Tapper

Backloaded...you mean dipping back in years?

Scott Peterson

No, I mean, most albums used to front load the hits and such. Put your strongest up top. His have always been more balanced. But maybe not so much here.

Dan Tapper

OH! Um...I think Wild is.

But this is close. Magic, too.

Scott Peterson

When you think about what he plays off any given album, it's often from the beginning or the corners.

I mean, I think most of the stuff he plays regularly off The Rising is from the first side (if it's a four lp set), plus the title track, for instance.

Dan Tapper

I'm really interested to see what he incorporates off this album into his live sets this coming tour. Does he do a lot of it? Only a couple? Interested to see.

Scott Peterson

Interesting about Magic. Hm. 

I think even more interesting is what he's still playing by the end of the tour, as well as subsequent tours. That often disappoints me, when artists—and he's not nearly as bad as, say, Eric Clapton, in this regard—play almost an entire album on the supporting tour, and then not one thing from it's heard on subsequent tours. I mean, I get it: you need to push the current record, and with each album you have a larger catalog to choose from and choices have to be made, and how are you not going to play, say, "Born to Run" or "Layla" or whatever. 

Dan Tapper

He plays 4 Rising tracks with regularity anymore: "Lonesome Day," "Waiting on a Sunny Day," "The Rising" and "My City of Ruin." And after he played nearly the entire Magic album on that tour, he doesn't play anything regularly from that album anymore. "Radio Nowhere" gets the most play still. And then maybe "Girls in Their Summer Clothes." But nothing regularly. And certainly nothing as regularly as, say, "Sunny Day."

Scott Peterson

You know there was one show on the Reunion tour, I think it was, where he didn't play a single Born in the USA song?

Dan Tapper

Working on a Dream tour started with, I think, 4 songs. And by the end of the tour was down to 2.

Wow—not one? Not even "Dancing in the Dark?"

Scott Peterson

Not even "Dancing in the Dark." Oddly, when I said the title track to The Rising just now, I was actually thinking of "My City of Ruin," oddly. True story. I don't know what that means. But I think my theory has utterly collapsed. Newman! 

Dan Tapper

When did you last see him? Working tour?

Scott Peterson

Yeah. I tried to get tickets for the Wrecking Ball shows but even with both of us trying on different computers and in different browsers, couldn't get anything that didn't suck. And I just couldn't afford to spend hundreds of dollars and lose a few days of work in order to go to a concert where I couldn't even really see him, you know? 

Dan Tapper

I do. I asked because the Working tour was the one and only time I've seen him do this next song live. In any form. But in Boston 2009 he did this version that we're about to hear. I'd only heard Rage Against the Machine do it this way up to that point.

Scott Peterson

I saw him do it—solo and acoustic, of course—on the Tom Joad tour in Wallingford. That was it. He and Morello played it in LA...either the night before or the night after I saw him there, I forget which. Great sadness was mine.

Dan Tapper

As well it should have been! As I mentioned a few days ago, I had trepidation of "American Skin" appearing on this album. I had none with "The Ghost of Tom Joad." I was excited as hell to hear it with studio polish.

Scott Peterson

I'm going to say, before we listen, that he'd played an electric version on the Reunion tour a few times. Which was good, but was nowhere near being in the same league as the electric "Youngstown."

Dan Tapper

See, I'd never heard it at all until that night in Boston. Interesting!

Scott Peterson

The Reunion tour version was...much more polite than the Reunion "Youngstown." It was essentially the same arrangement as the LP, just with some more instruments. Kinda country. 

Dan Tapper

And the electric "Youngstown" is one of the best live songs he's ever done, BTW.

Scott Peterson

But with Morello....

Yes. His electric "Youngstown" is indeed electric. And incendiary.

Dan Tapper

Soozie!

Scott Peterson

This opens kinda like the live opening of "Lost in the Flood" at first.

Dan Tapper

Nice little touch from her at the start. His voice is great.

Scott Peterson

Not the same 'tude vocally as the original LP version.

Dan Tapper

What I love is we know what's going to happen in a few moments, but the tension in having to wait for it is great.

Scott Peterson

No Garry yet again. 

Dan Tapper

Poor Garry.

Here we go!

Scott Peterson

Interesting choice of Tom's, to go down on the last line of his first verse.

Dan Tapper

I love the way Morello sings. He pays the song such reverence—you can tell how much this song means to him.

Harmonies here just knock me out.

Scott Peterson

Did I just hear Bruce yell in the background right before they start singing together?

Dan Tapper

I love that! He does it at both times. He's excited!

Scott Peterson

I find it odd just how good a harmony singer Bruce is, considering he's been the sole lead singer for decades.

Dan Tapper

And this solo. This solo.

Scott Peterson

You know, is the first solo Bruce? I think it is. Neither of them is listed as lead guitar.

Dan Tapper

It's really 3 solos coming here, y'know? First is straight melody line, not unlike Bruce's on "The Rising." And then the second...just wow.

Scott Peterson

I feel like it's 4 solos, with the 4th overlapping the 3rd.

Dan Tapper

Yes, I think that's Bruce on the 1st and them Tom on the next two doing a Hendrix impression (somewhat)

Oh! Inneresting! 

And then...near silence before the final verse. Awesome.

Scott Peterson

Yeah, just that sweet pickin'.

Dan Tapper

Again, listen to Tom's vocals. He takes ownership, almost. He seems to really love what he's singing.

These two are having a ball singing this.

And now this is all Morello, right?

Scott Peterson

This is so very much all Tom.
One of the things I really appreciate about Brendan O'Brien's production—not on this, but for taking over for a few years—is that he got Max to really open up on the hi-hat. 

Dan Tapper

What I think I appreciate most about this version of the song is it really never needed to be done. I mean, right? "The Ghost of Tom Joad" in its original acoustic packaging in 1995 was a Top 50 Bruce Springsteen song, a song filled with importance and meaning that achieved exactly what he had hoped. Same went for "Youngstown." So for it to work in full-blown rock mode, it kinda had to go that extra mile. It does just that. It did when the band performed it on past tours, and it works here. And Tom Morello, who clearly loved this song with all he's got, brings exactly what he thinks is needed to the table, right up through that dizzying solo at the end. That's why this song works so well. It didn't have to be done. Yet it was. And it worked beautifully.

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COMING TOMORROW—TRACK 11 FROM HIGH HOPES: "The Wall"