Tom Watson misses the point

(Note: I came across this through a Steve Gilliard post.)
In Trouble in the Heartland, Tom discusses Springsteen's new homage to Pete Seeger, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, and gets off-track when he hits Ballad of Jesse James.

Now I won't debate him on the meaning of the song (I agree), but I think he should consider the Boss's intent when putting this album together (and he states it clearly when talking about the album). He wasn't making a statement, he wasn't creating a theme album - he was simply playing songs that were fun to play. I only caught part of his interview played on Sirius, but I think it's available on the flipside (it's a DualDisc format) interviews and making of content. He was asked if he had picked songs to relate to today's situations, if there was an underlying motive to the selection. Nope. Just songs that are fun, tunes that sitting around a campfire might be cool to jam along with. Springsteen stated specifically that he did not consider the context of the songs beforehand, that if he did, he would have picked different songs, and the whole freewheeling creativity of the project would have been lost (my interpretation of the interview).

So, was the Jesse James selection a good one? Not if you're looking for meaning.