Late last year, I moved to Portland, Oregon. It’s a wonderfully weird place. The locals actually say, “Keep Portland weird.” There’s a large mural of that saying, somewhere in the city. Everything about this place is quirky, eccentric, and hence, I should fit in here, just fine.
I also started a new job. I’m working in the mental health field. No, I’m not a doctor, therapist, and definitely not a psychiatrist. I just work for a company that trains us to assist people who have one or more mental health diagnoses, addiction problems, or who have lived on the streets, but are now in reliable housing, provided by the state. It’s a good gig. I get paid well, to help the people who really need help the most.
On Friday night, it started snowing, the temperatures were bottoming out as low as 18°F. That’s well below freezing, and it doesn’t even account for the windchill factor.
The other, less positive side of Portland, is that the homelessness crisis here is really bad. It’s almost impossible to go anywhere without seeing at least one car, RV, tent, or lean-to type shelter that someone is using to live in.
I first discovered this song from the band Junip. When I realized that it’s a cover of Bruce Springsteen, I found the original, and loved it, too.
This morning, it’s so cold outside, that neither my dog nor myself want to go outside any longer than is absolutely necessary. But, there are people out there, living in tents and sleeping bags.
I woke up to this song playing, I had left my phone on shuffle all night to help me sleep. I listened to it, looked at the weather, then became obsessed.
I’d never played this song before, but I learned it, then I recorded all the guitar and bass parts, and sang the vocal, and recorded it, and mixed it. Basically my whole Sunday went into this.
I plan to make a video for it, but I wanted to get this out, because I worked on it nonstop all day.
The Ghost of Tom Joad
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 oneway 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
“The Ghost Of Tom Joad” lyrics
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
Words and music by Bruce Springsteen
Kevin Trent Boswell 