“Hebraic-Melvillian bardic breath,”

Springsteen had in fact read the book, watched the film, and listened to the song, before writing "The Ghost of Tom Joad"

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/who-is-oliver-anthony-rich-men-north-of-richmond-1234878370/

I gotta say I don't like where this world's headed
I just don't get it
I don't get it, don't get it

 

Teaching our kids how the good Lord blessed us
Calling out the stuff that the world done messed up
Right is right and God is the answer
Living this life the devil wants to cancel

 

Love ain't diamond rings
Bigger don't always mean better
The grass ain't always green
Money don't grow on trees ever
Can't make somebody be made for ya
God ain't going to do the praying for ya
Whiskey's best left up there on the shelf
You're gonna have to find the answers somewhere else
Note to self

 

Note to self
A truck only goes so far on half a tank

 

A few days 'fore he turned eighty
He was sitting out back in a rocker
He said, "What you been up to lately?"
I told him, "Chasing a dollar"
And in between sips of coffee
He poured this wisdom out
Said, "If you want my two cents on making a dollar count

 

Buy dirt
Find the one you can't live without
Get a ring, let your knee hit the ground
Do what you love but call it work
And throw a little money in the plate at church
Send your prayers up and your roots down deep
Add a few limbs to your family tree
And watch their pencil marks
And the grass in the yard
All grow up
'Cause the truth about it is
It all goes by real quick
You can't buy happiness
But you can buy dirt"

Before you get caught on that ladder
Let me tell you what it's all about
Find you a few things that matter
That you can put a fence around
And then he laid it out

 

Buy dirt
Find the one you can't live without
Get a ring, let your knee hit the ground
Do what you love but call it work
And throw a little money in the plate at church
Send your prayers up and your roots down deep
And add a few limbs to your family tree
And watch their pencil marks
And the grass in the yard
All grow up
'Cause the truth about it is
It all goes by real quick
You can't buy happiness
But you can buy dirt

You can buy dirt

And thank the good Lord for it
'Cause He ain't makin' any more of it

So buy dirt

 
Find the one you can't live without
Get a ring, let your knee hit the ground
Do what you love but call it work
And throw a little money in the plate at church
Send your prayers up and your roots down deep
Add a few limbs to your family tree
Watch their pencil marks
And the grass in the yard
All grow up
'Cause the truth about it is
It all goes by real quick
You can't buy happiness
 

Note to self 

You can buy dirt

 

There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.

— Raymond Chandler, "Red Wind" (1938)

The baby frets. The maid sulks. I rekindle a waning argument with the telephone company, then cut my losses and lie down, given over to whatever is in the air. To live with the Santa Ana is to accept, consciously or unconsciously, a deeply mechanistic view of human behavior. ... [T]he violence and the unpredictability of the Santa Ana affect the entire quality of life in Los Angeles, accentuate its impermanence, its unreliability. The wind shows us how close to the edge we are.

— Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968)

When the hills of Los Angeles are burning
Palm trees are candles in the murder winds
So many lives are on the breeze/ Even the stars are ill at ease
And Los Angeles is burning.

— Bad Religion, "Los Angeles Is Burning" (2004)