Letter To You (2020)


	

  1. One Minute You're Here
  2. Letter to You
  3. Burnin' Train
  4. Janey Needs a Shooter
  5. Last Man Standing
  6. The Power of Prayer
  7. House of a Thousand Guitars
  8. Rainmaker
  9. If I was the Priest
  10.Ghosts
  11.Song for Orphans
  12.I'll See You in My Dreams

 

News of a new Springsteen album featuring the full E Street Band is, by default, met with a measure of fanfare—particularly among those who recall the near-mythic heights of Born to Run or Darkness on the Edge of Town. Yet by 2020, even the most ardent admirer understands that those youthful eruptions of rock and catharsis now exist more as sacred reference points than repeatable feats. Age—and legacy—have rendered the band elder statesmen rather than insurgents. But once one adjusts expectations accordingly, what Letter to You offers is not disappointment, but rather an affirming return to form.

Recorded swiftly, reportedly in under three weeks, Letter to You benefits from that urgency. The performances are unfussy and full-blooded, with the band sounding united in spirit, if not always in precision. Springsteen, now firmly in his seventies, delivers the material with a voice weathered by time but fortified by intent. There is no real pretense at reinvention; this is the sound of a man surveying his past with clarity and—often—surprising vitality.

Stylistically, the album does wander. There are moments of familiar E Street grandeur, moments of introspection, and even a handful of revisited songs from his earliest songwriting years—an unusual and not unwelcome choice. The most compelling of these rediscovered relics are If I Was the Priest and Song for Orphans, both steeped in Dylanesque verbosity and biblical flourish. Their melodies and cadences evoke a young songwriter finding his footing, though they are rendered here with the gravity of a man revisiting ghosts long since made peace with.

Another throwback, Janey Needs a Shooter, hails from a similar vintage. It bears the marks of Springsteen’s 1970s period, though its present incarnation stretches the arrangement rather too far. At nearly seven minutes, it overstays its welcome—not for lack of quality, but from a lack of variation. A tighter edit might have yielded a sharper effect.

Indeed, some of the album’s weaker moments arise from repetition. Last Man Standing and The Power of Prayer, placed adjacently, suffer from a striking melodic overlap. While each has its individual merits, their proximity in the running order invites unfavorable comparison, and one suspects that a more judicious tracklist might have better served the whole.

The lone misfire is House of a Thousand Guitars, a song whose concept promises more than it delivers. Structurally inert, it loops through a single musical phrase with stubborn persistence—an arrangement that might work in theory, but here evokes the sensation of a stuck stylus on vinyl. That Springsteen singled it out as a personal favorite only compounds the curiosity.

Yet these criticisms are largely footnotes to an otherwise rich collection. Ghosts and Burnin’ Train are barnstorming highlights—urgent, vibrant, and brimming with melodic immediacy. Ghosts in particular is a late-career triumph, marrying youthful spirit with mature perspective. The title track is introspective without veering into indulgence, while both opener and closer—One Minute You’re Here and I’ll See You in My Dreams—recall the gentler tones of Western Stars, anchoring the album in a contemplative framework.

Ultimately, Letter to You is neither a reinvention nor a regression. It is, rather, an affirmation—of band, of voice, of craft. While it may not enter the pantheon of his greatest achievements, it sits proudly among the stronger offerings of his latter-day catalogue. For a man who once ran to escape the past, Springsteen now turns to face it—and finds in the looking back a music still worth making.



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