‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’: The song Tom Morello was convinced he would butcher
For a moment, Rage Against the Machine was America’s biggest band.
Off the back of 1992’s explosive eponymous debut, the politically charged heavy rap quartet was the leading face of the Lollapalooza wave that dominated the rock charts concurrent with the Seattle grunge scene. It was a good time for it. Frontman Zach de la Rocha’s lyrical invective chimed with an uncertainty that shrouded the decade as the USA muscled its way to global hegemon and Los Angeles’ race riots were still raw in the national consciousness.
Some 20 years earlier, New Jersey heartland rocker Bruce Springsteen gave voice to the blue-collar experience of the country with the string of acclaimed records cut with his E Street Band. Across the 1970s, he was selling out arenas, dabbled in dark folk with the austere Nebraska in 1982, and returned to the pop charts with Born in the USA‘s glossy pummel two years later, standing as one of the decade’s biggest-selling albums.
Across this trajectory and beyond, Springsteen kept his lyrical centre toward a concern for the drama and turmoil facing the American everyman, be it far-flung rural communities or down-and-out urban corners that form the guts of the States.
Naturally, both Springsteen and Rage Against the Machine would share some affinity in their values. Springsteen was known for his intrepid taste, gifting New York garage rockers The Dictators uncredited guest appearances and loving synthpunk duo Suicide to such a degree he’d often cover 1979’s ‘Dream Baby Dream’. Also a fan of Rage Against the Machine as well as their guitarist Tom Morello’s The Nightwatchmen, Rage Against the Machine’s final album in 2000, Renegades, would sow the seeds for an onstage collaboration.
When Rage Against the Machine joined forces with Bruce Springsteen
Cutting a take of ‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’ from Springsteen’s namesake 1995 album, Morello knew the song well enough. Crossing paths in 2008, Springsteen had suggested Morello join him on stage for a rendition, and upon hearing he was playing the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim arena two weeks later, Morello boldly reminded of the offer. Springsteen said yes. With the original an acoustic-led number evoking the ghosts of Nebraska and Rage Against the Machine’s heavy attack interpretation, Morello was instructed to bring his acoustic and electric guitar to cover any live possibility.
Having rehearsed and rehearsed for nights to get ‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’ down, a last-minute creative detour struck Morello with dread. Springsteen had raised the song up a key by about eight steps, completely throwing the Rage Against the Machine guitarist and E Street Band nut, eager to prove his chops. Still panged with nerves despite Steve Van Zandt‘s coaching of the new styling, Springsteen’s cool authority was all Morello needed to waylay his fears.
“They don’t call him The Boss for nothing,” he recounted backstage at 2012’s Outside Lands. “He puts a bossly hand on my shoulder, looks me square in the eye and says ‘we’re going to do it in this key and it’s going to be fine’, and it’s like, I went ‘oh yeah, it’s totally going to be fine’, and so that and a half bottle of Jameson later and I went out there and I ripped and it worked out well at the end of the day…”
Such a simple faith in his guitar knack resulted in an electric performance and a fruitful partnership that persists to this day, joining each other on stage last year at LA’s Kia Forum for ‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’ and his excoriation of the New York Police Department on 2001’s ‘American Skin (41 Shots)’.
