"Look in their eyes Mom you'll see me"

Today is October 15, 2008 and if you're like most Americans you are full up with political nonsense, scared to death about your finances and worried about your children's future. Fair enough, it's been a heck of few weeks!

But I'd like you to take a few minutes to think bigger, to give some thought to people just miles maybe even steps away from you who are worried too, worried about where they will sleep tonight, if they will have enough to eat and worried if their kids will even have a future.

Today thousands of bloggers are writing about poverty and millions of readers (like you) are reading... together we can make a difference, we can make a start to finish poverty.

Rather than ramble on and on I am going to hand this off to none other than Bruce Springsteen ~ I'll let his music and words speak for me. All I am asking is that you listen (turn it up, WAY UP!) to Bruce's Ghost of Tom Joad  his homage to John Steinback's Grapes of Wrath a poignant duet with Tom Morello (it is a stunning performance). (there is a more beautiful video version on iTunes if you like)

If you would please watch the video and read the lyrics ~ I hope it moves you like it moved me ~ please let me know what you think by leaving me a comment below. End poverty, now.

The Lyrics:

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

(Chorus)
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 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
(Chorus)
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." (Chorus)

Comments

[Rahul Deodhar]

By God - this is really amazing song. I had not heard this one before. It a really great way to express the plight.

Really amazing - thanks man!

[michale gibbons]

yes it is amazing! I watch it all the time and then to understand the meaning of the lyrics powerful!

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I didn't register 'ghost' until a short while later when someone
mentioned that these were famous ghosts who have been visiting the
cathedral for many centuries. Apparently the round shiny objects are
the shaven heads of monks. This person said they are only four feet
off the floor because they're still walking on the old floor, from
before they rebuilt after some major destruction

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I was involved again in the early 1990s when I started the campaign to label genetically engineered food. I quickly found that my efforts should be directed to getting the USDA to define 'organic' to exclude genetically engineered food... so my labeling campaign would not be needed. I did and we won.