The Ghost of Tom Joad

The two versions of the song, “Ghost of Tom Joad,” may contain the exact same lyrics, but the way they are sung and presented change the feeling and context of those lyrics entirely. I actually already had the Bruce Springsteen version of the song on my iTunes, so when I heard the Rage Against the Machine version, I was a little thrown off guard.

Bruce Springsteen starts this song off with the sounds of a harmonica, and immediately the person listening to this song would know that it has a “folky” feel to it. The tone of this song is very solemn and serene. I would listen to something like this if I wanted to fall asleep; it is just a peaceful melody. The lyrics to this song tell a story, and the beat and music behind the lyrics compliment this story perfectly. The story it tells seems to be a sort of old folk tale, something a passerby would have heard while traveling in the old West. In other words, one would have listened to this story by campfire while listening to music like this; it is extremely conventional and usual, and it speaks to the audience easily because it seems so familiar to people.

“Ghost of Tom Joad” by Rage Against the Machine, however, is completely unconventional and conveys a different meaning. This song was a heavy rock song. Though the lyrics say the same thing as the Springsteen version, the listener gets a sense of rebellion when they listen to it. It plays directly to the “rocker” stereotype that is  “we are rebels and if you do not agree with society, then you should rebel too!”  When I listened to this song for the first time, I was instantly taken out of that serene, calm setting that the other version presented, and thrown into a harsh, flawed setting because the tone of this version is obviously chaotic and unsettled. This version of the song is good, however, because it appeals to a completely different audience than the other, which allows for more people to hear the same lyrics, just presented in different ways.

It is amazing how two songs with the exact same lyrics can be interpreted so differently by merely changing the background music. It just goes to show that even though we do not think about this issue often, when we hear something familiar in a completely unconventional way, it catches us off guard and makes us question conventionalism.