The album is mainly backed by acoustic guitar work and the lyrics on many of the tracks are a sombre reflection of life in the mid-1990s in America and Mexico. Tom Joad(1995) is the hero of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.

The title track of this album has been covered by Rage Against the Machine and Junip.The album's release was followed by Springsteen's solo acoustic Ghost of Tom Joad Tour.

In 1982, with Ronald Reagan in the White House and much of America torn between a newly fierce patriotism and the dispassionate conservatism of the dawning "Greed Is Good" era, a number of roots-oriented rock musicians began examining the State of the Union in song, and one of the most powerful albums to come out of this movement was Bruce Springsteen's stark, home-recorded masterpiece Nebraska.The Ghost of Tom Joad failed to find the same audience (or the same wealth of media attention) that embraced Nebraska, but on it's own terms it's a striking and powerful album, and certainly one of Springsteen's most deeply personal works.