Across the Border

Across the Border is from his 1995 THE GHOST OF TOM JOAD album. It's one of the more listenable songs on the record. It seems to tell the story from an immigrant's point of view of how things will be and what they will do once they get across the border. Springsteen wrote the DEVILS AND DUST album a decade later, and had a song on there called Matamoros Banks, which Bruce told us was a sequel to Across the Border. In that song, we find the hero's lifeless corpse floating down the Rio Grande. But until then, we have the cinematic optimism of Across the Border. This song was obviously played for most if not all shows on his solo acoustic Ghost of Tom Joad tour, then it was soundchecked a few times on the Reunion tour, but never got any play in the shows. It was played 6 times on the Rising tour, 5 times on the Devils and Dust tour, and has had no play since then. Below is a beautiful version from the Rising tour, with the E Street Band and Emmylou Harris sharing the vocal. Listening to this version makes you think of how at home the song would have been on the We Shall Overcome tour.