Bruce Springsteen - Letter to You

Bruce Springsteen

Letter to You

It’s not often I go song by song to review an album but I felt with this one that I had to. 

So, let’s jump in to the latest Bruce Springsteen record. 

“One Minute You’re Here”: It opens hauntingly. Like a ghost of The Rising. Strains of “My City in Ruins” or “The Fuse”… Play this at Bruce’s funeral. But it’s an introduction. A head fake. Because the real opener is:

“Letter to You”: Screams to open his concerts. I guarantee you it will. The Letter to You concert. Simple lead lines, predictable drum fills bring comfort instead of the laziness I’ve felt in the past. You know that when the solo is over he’s going to follow that with “Good evening, Los Angeleez!”. It’s ready made stadium music.

“Burnin’ Train”: I was worried, after those two tracks, that we would get more subdued Bruce. More Devils and Dust than The Rising. Look, Bruce isn’t ever gonna be as innovative as he was in the 70s. He’s not the wordsmith of Asbury Park, the hot blooded kid of “Rosalita”, the pensive evaluator of American lives of The River. Those days are over. He’s 70 something. He wants to ride his horses on the open fields of his estate in New Jersey. That’s this song. It’s a tailgate party at a Dude Ranch. 

“Janey Needs a Shooter”. The loneliness and need of the lead character in this song resonates with those who have lost hope in 2020 and, for me, have turned to just about anyone for that hand. 

“Last Man Standing” is this album’s “Surprise Surprise” by X. Another song about longing for the fun of being in a band. Bruce is more wistful and nostalgic. It’s something extraordinary. He’s the “last man standing standing now”. With two dead E Street members and many other friends gone, Bruce is staring mortality in the face. He’s also the last of the boomers of the era to fill stadiums like he does. The guys from The Castiles are gone, most of his compatriots have shuffled off and he knows the days are numbered. This is the first song to make me sad for the day that a hero of mine will one day no longer be here.

“The Power of Prayer”.  Chords. Words. Bruce knows what to do with these. He can write this in his sleep. For me this is the Mary’s Place of the record. A song I know I’m supposed to sing along with but it’s sort of hollow. A song written around a statement that serves as a chorus and leaves me wanting. 

End Side One.  

Snap thoughts: It’s got a lot of great stuff going for it. Not the least of which is the way the band sounds, having recorded it live. But, also, I can not see myself returning to any of these songs. Maybe the title track. The rest of it I’m glad to know because I will want to sing along in concert.

“House of a Thousand Guitars” is the first song that made me think…did he write this in his studio, looking around at all his guitars? Is this the “Queen of the Supermarket” of this record. Feels like it. 

“Rainmaker” is the Trump song. It’s vicious. But not as much as an indictment of Trump. It is. But it’s more about empathizing with the desperate who follow him and need him. It’s the Bruce we have been looking for during this dark dark time. He did not disappoint. 

“If I Was the Priest” is another Castiles era track. Remember when Bruce was the “next Dylan”? And he employed wordplay that attempted to be just that? And then, poof, he never went back to that “Blinded by the Light” well? This is a track from that time, but spruced up with latter day E-Street glory. And it comes to life. It comes to life so well I kind of wish Bruce would re-record that first album with these grizzled and road traveled players. Thank god it fades out. I miss fade outs. 

I had already dismissed “Ghosts” because of the Tom Petty interpolation of “Free Falling” and, I admit, it’s difficult for me to get over. He’s done it before. “Radio Nowhere” bit on Tommy Tutone and he’s taken a bite out of KISS, ffs. But the elegiac chorus, especially if listening to the album as a whole, actually manages to work. 

“Song for Orphans” See: “If I Was the Priest”. An excellent 6+ minute track that I don’t know that I will ever return to.

“I’ll See You In My Dreams” takes us out. He hits this nail on the head. Like “The Show Must Go On” was the perfect career closer for Freddie Mercury, so is this for Bruce. In that context, he had me weeping at the end. 

Bruce is a smart guy. He’s very aware. He peels the onion of the world, people he sees and, most importantly, himself. So, if he is at all like I expect him to be, he is aware that the end is coming. He’ll reach the age of life expectancy soon. Four hour concerts are going to be more and more challenging. They may be the elixir of his life but it gets harder to lift the chalice as we get older. 

If this is the last Bruce Springsteen album, he has written an excellent eulogy. 

A perfect letter. The “You” isn’t just the listener. It’s the band. The bandmates. And, most importantly, the music. 

This is Bruce’s best collection since The Rising. And, I might add, that that record had it’s flaws. It felt, at times, like Bruce was trying to sound like what he wanted to remember Bruce sounded like. In that context, this is fuller and more realized and cohesive. Which makes it better than The Rising. Which makes it his best since Born in the USA.

https://music.apple.com/us/album/letter-to-you/1529959055