music friday: "the ghost of tom joad"

On this date in 1995, we saw the first of two Bruce Springsteen shows on his Ghost of Tom Joad tour. It was only the fourth show of the tour. He opened with this song on both nights, seen here on The Tonight Show:

Rage Against the Machine recorded a powerful cover of the song in 1997. Many years later, Rage guitarist Tom Morello joined the E Street Band for several live performances when Steven Van Zandt was unavailable, resulting in what you might say is Bruce covering one of his own songs. Morello made quite an impact, and this is the version I go to now. It turned up on recordings in 2008, they played it at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2009, Morello rejoined the band in 2013 where the song featured again, and finally, it turned up on Bruce's 2014 album High Hopes. Here is one of the live performances:

Morello surprised Bruce at the time: