Listening to the Boss Singing
The Ghost of Tom Joad,
Imagining the Okies as they
Travelled their Desolation Road.
Word Pictures by Steinbeck,
Dust Bowl Ballads by Guthrie,
Green Pastures Of Plenty
Pretty Boy Floyd, Doh Ray Mi.
Ecological disaster,
Dust and drought,
Trees chopped down
Good land farmed out.
Then came the winds
That blew the soil away
Followed by the Bankers
Who took their land away.
Pack up lock stock and barrel
In the trucks and on the way
To the promised land of plenty
The fabled Californ-ia
So long it's been good to know you
And then like the family Joad
Driven by need and poverty
It's off and on down the road.
With Global warming progressing
As more habitable land disappears
Will a new Steinbeck and Guthrie
Chronicle new Grapes Of Wrath years
Will there be a new Springsteen
To sing about a new Tom Joad
As they join the new exodus on
Their new desolation road.
