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The Ghost of Tom Joad
by Bruce Springsteen
ALBUM RANKINGS:
Ratings and rankings are based on all available critic reviews and awards.
Overall Rating:
2.9945
Avg. Critic Score:
3.1333
The Ghost of Tom Joad Lyrics
Lyrics
Disc
Track
Title
- Men walkin' 'long the railroad tracks
- Goin' someplace there's no goin' back
- Highway patrol choppers comin' up over the ridge
- Hot soup on a campfire under the bridge
- Shelter line stretchin' 'round the corner
- Welcome to the new world order
- Families sleepin' in their cars in the Southwest
- No home no job no peace no rest
- The highway is alive tonight
- But nobody's kiddin' nobody about where it goes
- I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light
- Searchin' for the ghost of Tom Joad
- He pulls a prayer book out of his sleeping bag
- Preacher lights up a butt and takes a drag
- Waitin' for when the last shall be first and the first shall be last
- In a cardboard box 'neath the underpass
- Got a one-way ticket to the promised land
- You got a hole in your belly and gun in your hand
- Sleeping on a pillow of solid rock
- Bathin' in the city aqueduct
- The highway is alive tonight
- Where it's headed everybody knows
- I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light
- Waitin' on the ghost of Tom Joad
- Now Tom said "Mom, wherever there's a cop beatin' a guy
- Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
- Where there's a fight 'gainst 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 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
- Got out of prison back in '86 and I found a wife
- Walked the clean and narrow
- Just tryin' to stay out and stay alive
- Got a job at the rendering plant, it ain't gonna make me rich
- In the darkness before dinner comes
- Sometimes I can feel the itch
- I got a cold mind to go tripping 'cross that thin line
- I'm sick of doin' straight time
- My uncle's at the evenin' table, makes his living runnin' hot cars
- Slips me a hundred dollar bill says
- "Charlie you best remember who your friends are."
- Got a cold mind to go tripping 'cross that thin line
- I ain't makin' straight time
- Eight years in it feels like you're gonna die
- But you get used to anything
- Sooner or later it just becomes your life
- Kitchen floor in the evening tossin' my little babies high
- Mary's smiling but she's watching me out of the corner of her eye
- Seems you can't get any more than half free
- I step out onto the front porch and suck the cold air deep inside of me
- Got a cold mind to go tripping 'cross that thin line
- I'm sick of doin' straight time
- In the basement huntin' gun and a hacksaw
- Sip a beer and thirteen inches of barrel drop to the floor
- Come home in the evening, can't get the smell from my hands
- Lay my head down on the pillow
- And go driftin' off into foreign lands
- Here in northeast Ohio
- Back in eighteen-o-three
- James and Dan Heaton
- Found the ore that was linin' Yellow Creek
- They built a blast furnace
- Here along the shore
- And they made the cannonballs
- That helped the Union win the war
- Here in Youngstown
- Here in Youngstown
- My sweet Jenny I'm sinkin' down
- Here darlin' in Youngstown
- Well my daddy worked the furnaces
- Kept 'em hotter than hell
- I come home from 'Nam worked my way to scarfer
- A job that'd suit the devil as well
- Taconite coke and limestone
- Fed my children and make my pay
- Them smokestacks reachin' like the arms of God
- Into a beautiful sky of soot and clay
- Here in Youngstown
- Here in Youngstown
- Sweet Jenny I'm sinkin' down
- Here darlin' in Youngstown
- Well my daddy come on the Ohio works
- When he come home from World War Two
- Now the yard's just scrap and rubble
- He said "Them big boys did what Hitler couldn't do."
- These mills they built the tanks and bombs
- That won this country's wars
- We sent our sons to Korea and Vietnam
- Now we're wondering what they were dyin' for
- Here in Youngstown
- Here in Youngstown
- My sweet Jenny I'm sinkin' down
- Here darlin' in Youngstown
- From the Monongahela valley
- To the Mesabi iron range
- To the coal mines of Appalachia
- The story's always the same
- Seven hundred tons of metal a day
- Now sir you tell me the world's changed
- Once I made you rich enough
- Rich enough to forget my name
- And Youngstown
- And Youngstown
- My sweet Jenny I'm sinkin' down
- Here darlin' in Youngstown
- When I die I don't want no part of heaven
- I would not do heaven's work well
- I pray the devil comes and takes me
- To stand in the fiery furnaces of hell
- I got my discharge from Fort Irwin
- Took a place on the San Diego county line
- Felt funny bein' a civilian again
- It'd been some time
- My wife had died a year ago
- I was still tryin' to find my way back whole
- Went to work for the INS on the line
- With the California border patrol
- Bobby Ramirez was a ten-year veteran
- We became friends
- His family was from Guanajuato
- So the job it was different for him
- He said "They risk death in the deserts and mountains
- Pay all they got to the smugglers rings
- We send 'em home and they come right back again
- Carl hunger is a powerful thing."
- Well I was good at doin' what I was told
- Kept my uniform pressed and clean
- At night I chased their shadows
- Through the arroyos and ravines
- Drug runners farmers with their families
- Young women with little children by their sides
- Come night we'd wait out in the canyons
- And try to keep 'em from crossin' the line
- Well the first time that I saw her
- She was in the holdin' pen
- Our eyes met and she looked away
- Then she looked back again
- Her hair was black as coal
- Her eyes reminded me of what I'd lost
- She had a young child cryin' in her arms
- I asked "Senora is there anything I can do ?"
- There's a bar in Tijuana
- Where me and Bobby drink alongside
- The same people we'd sent back the day before
- She said her name was Louisa
- She was from Sonora and had just come north
- We danced and I held her in my arms
- And I knew what I would do
- She said she had some family in Madera county
- If she her child and younger brother could just get through
- At night they come across the levee
- In the searchlight's dusty glow
- We'd rush 'em in our Broncos
- Force 'em back down into the river below
- She climbed into my truck
- She leaned toward me and we kissed
- As we drove her brother's shirt slipped open
- And I saw the tape across his chest
- We were just about on the highway
- When Bobby's jeep come up in the dust on my right
- I pulled over and let my engine run
- And stepped out into his lights
- I felt myself movin'
- My gun restin' 'neath my hand
- We stood there starin' at each other
- As off through the arroyo she ran
- Bobby Ramirez he never said nothin'
- Six months later I left the line
- I drifted to the central valley
- And took what work that I could find
- At night I searched the local bars
- And the migrant towns
- Lookin' for my Louisa
- With the black hair fallin' down
- He lay his blanket underneath the freeway
- As the evening sky grew dark
- Took a sniff of toncho from his coke can
- And headed through Balboa Park
- Where the men in their Mercedes
- Come nightly to employ
- In the cool San Diego evening
- The services of the border boys
- He grew up near the Zona Norte
- With the hustlers and smugglers he hung out with
- He swallowed their balloons of cocaine
- Brought 'em across to the Twelfth Street strip
- Sleeping in a shelter
- If the night got too cold
- Runnin' from the migra
- Of the border patrol
- Past the salvage yard 'cross the train tracks
- And in through the storm drain
- They stretched their blankets out 'neath the freeway
- And each one took a name
- There was X-man and Cochise
- Little Spider his sneakers covered in river mud
- They come north to California
- End up with the poison in their blood
- He did what he had to for the money
- Sometimes he sent home what he could spare
- The rest went to high-top sneakers and toncho
- And jeans like the gavachos wear
- One night the border patrol swept Twelfth Street
- A big car come fast down the boulevard
- Spider stood caught in its headlights
- Got hit and went down hard
- As the car sped away Spider held his stomach
- Limped to his blanket 'neath the underpass
- Lie there tasting his own blood on his tongue
- Closed his eyes and listened to the cars
- Rushin' by so fast
- Tonight my bag is packed
- Tomorrow I'll walk these tracks
- That will lead me across the border
- Tomorrow my love and I
- Will sleep 'neath auburn skies
- Somewhere across the border
- We'll leave behind my dear
- The pain and sadness we found here
- And we'll drink from the Bravo's muddy water
- Where the sky grows gray and wide
- We'll meet on the other side
- There across the border
- For you I'll build a house
- High upon a grassy hill
- Somewhere across the border
- Where pain and memory
- Pain and memory have been stilled
- There across the border
- And sweet blossoms fill the air
- Pastures of gold and green
- Roll down into cool clear waters
- And in your arms 'neath open skies
- I'll kiss the sorrow from your eyes
- There across the border
- Tonight we'll sing the songs
- I'll dream of you my corazon
- And tomorrow my heart will be strong
- And may the saints' blessing and grace
- Carry me safely into your arms
- There across the border
- For what are we
- Without hope in our hearts
- That someday we'll drink from God's blessed waters
- And eat the fruit from the vine
- I know love and fortune will be mine
- Somewhere across the border
- "Every cloud has a silver lining, every dog has his day."
- She said "Now don't stay nothin'
- If you don't have something nice to say
- The tough now they get going when the going gets tough."
- But for you my best was never good enough
- "Now don't try for a home run baby
- If you can get the job done with a hit
- Remember a quitter never wins
- And a winner never quits
- The sun don't shine on a sleepin' dog's ass."
- And all the rest of that stuff
- But for you my best was never good enough
- "If God gives you nothin' but lemons then you make some lemonade
- The early bird catches the fuckin' worm, Rome wasn't built in a day
- Now life's like a box of chocolates
- You never know what you're going to get
- Stupid is as stupid does" and all the rest of that shit
- Come on pretty baby call my bluff
- 'Cause for you my best was never good enough
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