Spotlight Album Review: Bruce Springsteen "Letter To You"

In the nearly five decades that he’s been recording, Bruce Springsteen hasn’t resisted being the voice of his generation, whether as a young man hungry with ambition or a mature artist absorbing the zeitgeist of the socio-political moment. Musically, he’s changed up the mix over the years with the spare arrangements of Nebraska, the folk influence of We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, and the lush expanse of Western Stars. He’s always written songs that seem personal and yet resonate for a larger audience. Now, in 2020 he addresses aging and mortality most directly in the poetic and powerful Letter to You.

After the cinematic story songs of Western Stars, as the title suggests, Letter to You has a more personal feel. The genesis seems to have been the death of George Theiss, the leader of Bruce’s first band, The Castilles, combined with the passing of E Street Bandmates Clarence Clemons and Danny Federici.  He assembled the remaining E Streeters for the first time since 2014, without any additional musicians, for four days of recording in his home studio. Considering the endless labor that went into Darkness on the Edge of Town, the rapid sessions spoke to Bruce’s confidence in his musicians and his writing.

The title song posits that Bruce is writing about “things I found through hard times and good.” That echoes the bittersweet acoustic opening track, “One Minute You’re Here,” which says, “I thought I knew just who I was/And what I’d do but I was wrong.” Specific memories of Theiss come in a couple of songs: “Last Man Standing,” with memories of long-ago gigs at the Knights of Columbus and American Legion Hall; and “Ghosts,” recalling his buckskin jacket and Fender Twin guitar and a “spirit filled with light.” While there’s a sense of loss (“I need you by my side”), both songs are upbeat and ultimately triumphant. “Ghosts” exclaims, “I’m Alive,” with the band joining in on an extended “la-la-la-la” chorus.

Three songs turn out to be reclaimed compositions from his early auditions for John Hammond: the big beat and organ backing of “Janey Needs a Shooter,” about authority figures; “Orphans,” with clearly Dylanesque lyrics (“black blind poet generals”); and “If I Was a Priest,” with a similar rush of lyrics, but a more muscular attack musically than his very early work. Religious references abound.  Besides “Priest,’” with its descriptions of Jesus as a sheriff and “sweet Virgin Mary” running the “Holy Grail Saloon,” there’s the Biblical imagery in the rocker “Burning Train,” with the line “our shared faith rising dark and decayed.”

Another kind of faith is the hedonistic “Power of Prayer,” a classic Springsteen ode to summer memories, (“Last call, the bouncer shuts the door/’This Magic Moment’ drifts across the floor/
As Ben E. King's voice fills the air/Baby, that's the power of prayer’).  The sad truth is that summer doesn’t last. In the album’s finale, “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” he laments the time “when all our summers have come to an end.”  It’s a tender valediction for lost youth. “Yeah, up around the bend,” he sings, “for death is not the end.”  

In some ways, the pivotal song in Letter to You is right in the middle: “House of a Thousand Guitars,” which begins with a beautiful solo piano, before the band kicks in. It speaks of community, the ongoing artistic quest (“in search of the lost chord”), and the infinite power of music. (“So wake and shake off your troubles, my friend/We'll go where the music never ends/From the stadiums to the small town bars/ We'll light up the house of a thousand guitars.”)

At this point in his life, Bruce acknowledges that there’s a greater force in his life. At the end of Springsteen of Broadway (available on Netflix), he quotes the Lord’s Prayer. And in a voiceover to the documentary about Letter to You (gracefully directed by Thom Zimney on Apple TV+), he closes with these words:

“You stumble into those moments when you can feel the hand of God gently rest upon your shoulders and you realize how lucky you are, lucky to be alive, lucky to be breathing in this world of beauty, horror, and hope. Because this is what there is – a chance, a world where it’s lucky to love, lucky to be loved. So you go until it fills you, until the sweat, blood, and hard tears make sense. You go until the light from the fading distant stars fall at your feet. And may God bless you.”