The Ghost of Tom Joad guitar work and the lyrics on many of the tracks are a somber reflection of life in the mid-1990s in America and Mexico. The character of Tom Joad entered the American consciousness in John Steinbeck’s 1939 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "The Grapes of Wrath", set against the economic hardships of the Great Depression. This spawned a film version starring Henry Fonda, which in turn inspired folk singer Woody Guthrie to pen "The Ballad of Tom Joad". The album's release was followed by Springsteen's solo acoustic Ghost of Tom Joad Tour, which ran from 1995 to 1997 and consisted of mostly small
The Generals of the Yang Family previous novels, some retold particular stories, while some are sequels. Other novels with similar settings would also feature characters from the Yang family, for example the novels featuring Zhao Kuangyin (927–976) or Di Qing (1008–1057) as their main character. Other novels in later settings also included characters who were alleged descendants of the Yang family: The Jiaqing Emperor, who reigned from 1796 to 1820, ordered the compilation of a "Song Book to Enlighten Generations" (昭代箫韶), containing 240 plays in "kunqu" about the generals of the Yang family. The compilation was published in 1813 and attributed to Wang Tingzhang (王廷章) and