You've been alone for too long. Days have melted into weeks into months and now the year has nearly ended. You wonder if anything will change, or if change is even worth the risk. On your loneliest afternoon, the nostalgic sound of a hand rapping on your door jars you awake. Through the peephole, you see the haggard face of a familiar friend. The small hesitation you feel makes you feel sick inside. Opening the door, you exchange smiles and distanced pleasantries. Then their arms spread wide. They want contact, just like you, just like anyone would. You want to relive the memory of fearless, intimate contact but skeptically watch the scene unfold, out of body, unsure of how to proceed.
The last time I wrote a review on this website, the streets of America were aflame was aflame with righteous anger over systemic racism and the police brutality that stemmed from it. COVID-19 had been set to the side as we joined together to speak truth to power. Four months later, justice has not been served. Killer cops continue to patrol the streets and a killer virus has swallowed rural America whole, as well as western Europe, setting us up for what has been touted as a horrifying winter by medical experts. Additionally, America is preparing to "do battle for its soul" (ex-VP Joe Biden's words, not mine) on November 3rd, in which we will all play a game of societal Russian roulette. Who the fuck knows what will happen next? If there is anything that the 2016 election cast doubt upon, it's the inclinations of fellow Americans. Everyone can act on their worst inclinations if prompted to do so.
As for me, well...my life has been great since then. After a frightening, humbling year full of rejection, I landed a wonderful job in my field that allowed my family to move from a one bedroom apartment in MS-13 gang territory to a lovely two bedroom in Toluca Lake, CA, down the street from where Bob Hope and Miley Cyrus once lived. Everyone is white like me, my neighbors are generally in good health and possess good insurance. It's the picture of gentrification. It's the American dream. I have insulated my family from a terrible situation as best I can. Isn't that my responsibility as a man? And shouldn't I be happy?
Well, truth be told, I'm not. I am still terrified of what the future holds for my wife and daughter. I frequently look at the COVID-19 death toll and cry. I hate what has become of my country and feel a great deal of shame because of the men who represent it. And no matter what my salary or apartment looks like, I can't shake that life is dogshit and probably won't be improving any time soon.
All of this preamble is to say that, no matter rich and insulated he may be ($500 million dollars can buy a whole lot of it), I never doubt Bruce Springsteen's sincerity when he sings about sorrow, pain and existential angst. Bruce has been singing about the plight of the common man for so long that his entire career and legacy depends on it. It's his job to feel the pulse of America and, with his unique bedside manner, deliver precisely the right commentary for it.
So with Letter to You, Bruce is giving us exactly what we need, even if it's not necessary what all of us want. Some of us want another Born to Run, some another bombastic Born in the USA. Others want another Nebraska. I happen to be a huge fan of Bruce's Bob Dylan/Van Morrison-inspired early work, so when I was told that several of these songs originated in 1973, I rushed to listen to this more quickly than I ordinarily would have.
Just so no one is misled: no, this does not sound like Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.. No, it doesn't sound like The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle. There is one song that delivers not only the skeleton but the muscle and tissue of a Darkness on the Edge of Town-era track, and that is Janey Needs a Shooter. It's essentially the title song from Darkness without the dynamics or angst , but it sounds so fucking right. The organ, the guitar tone, it's all there. The song itself is sturdy and enjoyable, but it's the sound that gives it such impact.
Such is the reality of new Springsteen releases in general. I was a little too young to appreciate the impact of The Rising upon release, as I was only 11 years old then, but that album was an event because it was an embrace from an old friend, an American icon, and in the end, did it really matter that Brendon O'Brien fucked up the production with loudness war bullshit and left too many tracks on there? Of course not. My personal tracklisting for that album would be about 10 tracks and 45 minutes long, but it's still a classic because of its timing.
Letter to You, for all of the hype about it being a return to Bruce's acclaimed 70s heyday with the E Street band at their rawest, is ultimately The Rising 2. Look at the descriptors for it: uplifting, sentimental, melodic, anthemic, passionate, triumphant. Duh. What else was it going to be? And no matter how far back they stripped the production by limiting overdubs, Bruce's voice in 2020 is still Bruce's voice in 2020. He's not singing about kidnapped handicaps catching the clap from mousetraps anymore. He's singing about trains, flannel shirts, lonely shirts and empty armchairs that once held your living, breathing loved ones.
We've looked at the descriptors, so now let's look at the song titles: One Minute You're Here, Letter to You, Last Man Standing (he hadn't used that one yet??), Ghosts, Song for Orphans, I'll See You in My Dreams. Do I need to comment on these? You and I both know exactly what this album is about and why Bruce felt the need to release it when he did. Curiously, perhaps thankfully, only one song explicitly gives Donald Trump the time of day: Rainmaker isn't all that interesting melodically save a great chord change towards the end of the chorus, but it's insistent rhythmically and offers a fairly sympathetic depiction of his supporters. Not a highlight, but if you've listened to Magic, you knew a track like that was going to be in here somewhere.
Song for Orphans is like one of those slow, topical tracks from The Rising that is incredibly specific in its subject matter and might not age that well (Into the Fire, Paradise, you know the ones) but hits like a truck in the short term. You bet your ass it's about refugee children at the border. It sounds like No Surrender at half speed, like much of this album. The somewhat jarringly jaunty I'll See You in My Dreams is about losing the ones you love and assuring yourself that death is not the end as a method of comfort. One Minute You're Here is - surprise, surprise - also about losing your loved ones. Let's take a moment to recognize that the album is bookended by songs that indirectly reference the astonishing death toll of the COVID-19 pandemic. Perhaps "uplifting" is a mildly misleading descriptor for this album after all.
But that gap between downtrodden lyrical content and the triumphant power of rock n' roll always been part of the Bruce Spingsteen playbook, hasn't it? It was a bone-breaking death trap, suicide rap that Bruce begged Wendy to escape. Remember those opening lyrics from Badlands?
Lights out tonight, trouble in the heartland
Got a head-on collision smashin' in my guts, man
I'm caught in a cross fire that I don't understand
But there's one thing I know for sure girl
I don't give a damn for the same old played out scenes
Baby I don't give a damn for just the in betweens
Honey, I want the heart, I want the soul, I want control right now
That situation sounds fucking desperate on paper, but when you hear him bellow those sentiments over the fucking E STREET BAND it sounds like thunder. And so it goes on Letter to You. Life is absolute hell, but thank God for Bruce Springsteen bringing his boys around for another affirmation that suffering can be alchemized into triumph.
Ghosts is probably the best example of this power at work. Expertly placed right when the album is beginning to wilt just a bit, the song serves the potent purpose that The Rising's title song did 18 years ago. A dedication to George Theiss, founding member of The Castiles, a band that gave Bruce his start in the industry, Ghosts could be inundated with sorrow. But of course you know it's not. It's fucking 21st century Bruce Springsteen. He rocks the shit out of this track, complete with a classic Bruce WUH-TUH-THREH-FUH count-off and those wondrous la-la-la-la-laaaas that gave The Rising extra juice. It's a great, great song.
I could go through every track on here and describe it to you, but ultimately my explications would boil down to what I felt when I heard it rather than what it ultimately sounded like. You know exactly what this album is going to sound like and in this particularly awful year in world history, that is what is so essential about it. Sometimes we don't need a Bruce Springsteen album as much as other times. Working on a Dream, released at the start of the Obama administration, was mostly awful, but even if it had been decently written and produced, it would't have hit like The Rising or Magic did. Letter to You is one of those Bruce albums that actually needed to be released and I'm grateful that he released it.
The reason I wrote this review, the reason I write any review these days, is because something about the album provoked me to do so on a very primal level. With all the baggage weighing me down, and presently trying to rally from a bout of stomach flu that I momentarily feared was due to SARS-CoV-2 (a recurring theme of any ailments I've felt in the past 8 months), I strapped on a mask and went for a walk with my dog while I listened to Letter to You. The entire time, I was on the verge of tears. Was it the content? Was it the music? Was it the fact that I may never get to hear these songs live because, truly, one minute we're here, and the next we're gone, including those who seem immortal?
I've been listening to Bruce's music quite frequently for comfort this year, especially the song Reason to Believe, the closer on Nebraska. The questions embedded in that song are so real, and so expertly illustrated by its characters, that I feel as if everything I've been pondering this year is right there on wax. Why do people expect anything good to come of their lives when life itself is full of pain? Why wait for change to come? Why fucking bother? Because that's just what we do. It's a horrifying and beautiful quirk in human nature that we have less control over than we think.
In a time that increasingly dilutes our humanity through fear, isolation and skepticism of our fellow man, I want to encourage everyone to reach out and embrace something. Something that makes you happy, someone you love. Maybe a pretty solid late-career Bruce Springsteen album that you know isn't his best. Be grateful for what you still have, whether it's a great deal or not much at all. Letter to You made me grateful that we still have Bruce Springsteen.
