Bruce Springsteen’s The Ghost of Tom Joad, released in 1995, was a return to the style and themes of the haunting Nebraska. Recorded mostly on acoustic guitar, the somber album drew inspiration (and its title character) from Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.
Springsteen has always been a populist songwriter though he tends to not get overly political in his songs. Instead he gets his point across by weaving the hard-luck tales of men and women who are society’s victims.
On several Ghost of Tom Joad tracks, Springsteen focuses his eye on immigration. He describes border-crossing stories as tales of desperation and the desire for a better life. It’s a dose of sad reality that is lost on the clown posse making up our current Republican primary field. How disheartening that the issue remains as relevant today as it was 17 years ago.
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
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
The highway is alive tonight
But where it’s headed everybody knows
I’m sittin’ down here in the campfire light
Waitin’ on the ghost of Tom Joad
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.”
The highway is alive tonight
But nobody’s kiddin’ nobody about where it goes
I’m sittin’ downhere in the campfire light
With the ghost of old Tom Joad
Meet Me In Montauk 
This sounds like an album I would love based on your description and based on listening to this song. Seems like one I need to pick up.