50 Years Burning Down the Road: Reviewing Every Springsteen Album From Worst to Best

Coming in at #14: Letter to You

I want to start this review by acknowledging an understated element of the E Street Band’s recording career: the ever-intuitive and trusty sidekick, Steven Van Zandt. His role in the E Street Band and as Bruce Springsteen’s trustiest advisor has not come up so far in this writing project as many of Bruce’s later career and non-E Street Band albums have dominated the back end of this list. I will later discuss Little Steven’s hand in arranging the horns on “Tenth Avenue Freeze-out” and fixing “Born to Run” and his influence as a co-producer on The River. But the reason I bring him up in this review is he convinced Bruce that this album, 2020’s Letter to You, be recorded live with the E Street Band all in one room with little to no overdubs—a recording process that strangely had not been utilized since 1984’s Born in the USA. So, thank you Little Steven as you read fans’ minds, or at least this fan’s mind, because while I respect Bruce’s desire to foray into a more ambitious musical territory on prior 21st century E Street Band records, they can not compete with the soul and righteousness of the best bar band in the world’s bread and butter: playing live.

I have been primarily focused on Bruce Springsteen the songwriter in most of these reviews, but Bruce Springsteen the entertainer is probably just as important. As I write about Bruce’s recording career, not the other massive piece of his prolificity in being a live performer, songwriting is key. However, as I mentioned, Letter to You was mostly recorded live, so that piece is at play and dramatically elevates the quality of the tracklist creating a record greater than the sum of its parts. While other albums that I have already reviewed may have more consistently proficient songwriting, Letter to You earns its spot higher on the list because Bruce and the band just sound so good. While Bruce’s lyricism can dip into the basket of trite stereotypical Springsteen tropes, it is the performance that elevates a run-of-the-mill song to a rich track. The album’s foundational concepts of grief, loss, and a celebration of rock and roll itself provide enough of a backbone to accept it as a uniquely thematic project.

Letter to You features three songs written around 1973. They were never formally recorded or released, but they are dispersed amid the recently written songs that make up the greater portion of the tracklist. But, oh my goodness, do they anchor this album and catapult its level of enjoyment to almost even with many classic moments of his recording career. “Janey Needs a Shooter”, “If I Was the Priest”, and “Song for Orphans” are the best tracks on this album. The writing, lyrics, and arrangement of these songs cement them as staples in Bruce’s career almost 50 years after they were originally penned. Overall, these tracks are really what put this album at number 14. The rest is pretty good too.

Here’s the Rundown:

Letter to You starts with “One Minute You’re Here”; a stark country-western ballad in which Bruce sings about the fragility of life and the fear of a lonely death in a reverb-drenched baritone. His vocal reminds me of Johnny Cash as do many of the lyrical tropes such as big black trains, gravel roads, and summer winds. It feels like a transitional piece bridging Western Stars to Letter to You with its subtle Southwestern instrumentation that eventually blossoms into a soaring wall of sound by the end of the track. Even though I like the song, I have gone back and forth about whether I think this song is necessary on the tracklist because its aesthetic has little to do with any of the tracks’ rock arrangements. I like the lyrical themes and they line up with the overall themes of the album, but Bruce’s E Street albums typically start with something more upbeat (“Blinded By The Light”, “The E Street Shuffle”, “Badlands”, “The Ties That Bind”, “Born in the USA”, etc.) so it feels different. “Letter to You” seems like it would be a better opener, but the transition is cool.

I really like “Letter to You”. I love the intro as Max Weinberg does a signature eighth-note-build on the floor tom and snare. The band comes in strong on a classic descending piano and guitar riff accented by glockenspiel and ask-and-answer soulful B3 organ licks. The E Street Band is in their bag—I love the part in the middle where Bruce plays the verse melody on a chimey guitar and the organ fills in with more soulful flourishes. Bruce’s voice sounds strong as he flexes his falsetto. I also like the way he annunciates the word “out” in the chorus. Although, lyrically, this is what I refer to as “one-verse syndrome”, which refers to Bruce’s recent tendency to write one amazing verse and phone in the rest. The “sunshine and rain, happiness and pain” and “hard times and good” tropes sound like low-hanging fruit for Bruce Springsteen. I do not mean that to sound so harsh, and when the rest of the song is good (like in this case), I can get past it. Meanwhile, “‘Neath a crowd of mongrel trees, I pulled that bothersome thread/Got down on my knees grabbed my pen and bowed my head/Tried to summon all that my heart finds true/And send it in my letter to you”, is an A+ first verse with such eloquent imagery.

“Burnin’ Train” is a song that I did not love initially. It is said to have been written in the mid-90s around the time the Human Touch and Lucky Town albums came out, which makes sense when you hear the lyrics. It reminds me of “Leap of Faith” off Lucky Town with the unlikely juxtaposition of sexual and Christian imagery. However, “Leap of Faith” does not take itself too seriously with lines like “Your legs were heaven, your breasts were the altar, your body was the holy land,” or “You were the Red Sea, I was Moses, I kissed you and slipped into a bed of roses” or referring himself to “Jesus’s son, sanctified.” I digress with the Leap of Faith breakdown, but it is a song I always found amusing. Anyway, “Burnin’ Train” does sorta take itself seriously with the aforementioned juxtaposition, and it leaves me feeling weird. Hearing live versions at the beginning of the tour did make the song grow on me, as it is well-documented that the E Street Band can give a dose of righteousness with an audience in front of them.

I think the sequencing of Letter to You works toward its benefit, which has always been a factor that Bruce has wrestled with during his career. It can often turn out not as much in an album’s favor, but it did this time. The first of the “old” songs “Janey Needs a Shooter” is placed perfectly here as the sexual imagery this time infests itself with circa 1973 Springsteen idiosyncrasy and therefore, pleasantry. This song has existed in various iterations before being recorded in 2020—solo piano takes and E Street Band versions in 1978 and 79; one of which has since circulated as a muffled bootleg. It makes sense that it never found its way onto any of the albums in the 70s because the song feels like an event—something that stands alone rather than sits within a narrative. Dare I say, I think this song was ahead of its time for Bruce as far as its thematic complexity. It is the earliest song that I can think of where Bruce writes about the individual lives and complicated experiences of women—not just love songs or songs about women in relation to men. The lyrics tell the story of many men trying to engage Janey sexually but are not able to fill her humanistic needs or treat her with genuine care and companionship. The “shooter” character that Bruce assumes is confident he is the man for her. I love the imagery and the narrative—it is characteristically great storytelling. The E Street Band kills it too. The opening snare shot and the wind up of the rotary on the organ hits you like a drug. It is a wonderful downtempo song with space in the arrangement that the E Street Band tastefully fills. It is a major highlight on Letter to You.

“Last Man Standing” is another one of my favorites on the album. It is the first of the most recent batch of songs that Bruce wrote for this album. It was inspired by the death of George Theiss, Bruce’s dear friend and the only other remaining member of his very first band, The Castiles. Bruce sings about his teenage memories as a member of the band and the forged bond between him and George. It is a sweet song with a triumphant chorus anchored by a giant riff until it explodes into a glorious key change at the end. Musically, I think it is the best of the more contemporary bunch of tracks. It is a shame that Bruce is only playing it acoustically live.

“The Power of Prayer” is a song that I enjoyed when the album came out, but not as much now. I hate the title and the melody in which it is sung. It is all a little bit “aw shucks.” The arrangement also feels formulaic. It is two verses and then the sax plays the less-than-inspired vocal melody leading into the last chorus. I like the chorus lyrics though with the poker metaphor—it shows that maybe ol’ Brucey got some left in the tank. “House of a Thousand Guitars” sounds similar to its predecessor, but it is a much better song. I thought the opposite when I first heard it because of a few lyrics that irked me. I do not like that he recycled “churches and jails” from motherfuckin’ “Jungleland”, the title is lifted off a Willie Nile song, and how many times the title is repeated at the end of the song. However, I do like the music, the vocal melody, and the theme of finding music as solace in the face of…as Bruce says…"the criminal clown” stealing the “throne” and other recent American atrocities.

I feel throughout all these reviews that I have done so far, I have a track that I barely write about because it just simply sucks. That is “Rainmaker” on Letter to You. It is believed to be an outtake from The Rising and man, does it sound like one in the worst possible way. It is a head-scratcher because Bruce clearly knows he wrote much better songs in that era with that same theme of spirituality and blind faith because he left this one off the album it was originally written for. Is it on Letter to You as filler? It serves little purpose. If it does have any purpose, it is making the next track uber-gratifying.

“If I Was The Priest” is unadulterated fun from its opening line; “well there’s a light on yonder mountain, and it’s calling me to shine.” What can I really say about this track? He wrote it when he was 22 years old (my age) and it is undoubtedly Bruce at his peak “new-Dylan” persona crafting scenes of religious debauchery, corruption, and dysfunction culminating in a narrative about who knows what! Bruce does not even know, as he has said himself onstage. The E Street Band takes this thing and runs with it with so much energy packed into the arrangement that the song feels like it is going to burst, and I am sure that if it were not for the all-too-early fade-out, Little Steven would probably still be soloing over that last reprise. The recording is lightning in a bottle. You can hear Bruce’s infatuation with the performance in his vocals where by the end of the song, he is barely annunciating the lyrics to the last chorus. What purpose does this song serve thematically? I don’t know, but it is a 2023 Bruce Springsteen album, who cares? “Priest” rules. Period.

Listen I have been saying this about “Ghosts” since the tour started; it sounds like an Artificial Intelligence Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band song. The lyrics are corny and often don’t make sense. The chorus is “I’m alive”, but then in the last verse “at the end of the set, we leave no one alive.” Who’s alive here? Is the audience dead but Bruce is alive? Are we all dead, and hence, ghosts? But, it does not really matter, because the song is meant as a jubilant celebration of life and music—a tribute to heroes and companions living and gone. I will buy it. I think it is too long and too repetitive, but its essence is just so safe and agreeable (hence my AI description) that I would be way too overly cynical to have a problem with this track.

“Ghosts” leads into the third and final “old” song, “Song For Orphans” which is a brilliant feat of new-Dylanism, only this time stamped profoundly with Bruce’s unique perspective. “Song For Orphans” is an apt title, but the song is really for loners and misfits helpless in the eyes of the universe, and waiting for it to magically take them in without conforming to any inauthentic societal constructs. Honestly, I feel like this sometimes and I am guessing maybe everyone does because humans are emotional organisms and life delivers situations where you either compromise and cope or follow your heart and struggle. There is never an objectively correct course of action. This song speaks to Bruce’s early ability to tangle his human experience into his audience’s collective mind inviting the million (almost billion) dollar magic trick to convince us we know the guy. He has got to be writing about me right? I am a misfit! I feel alone sometimes! I feel misunderstood! Newsflash: we all do. That is why music and Bruce’s music in particular feels so good. The synergy between Bruce and his audience definitely hit its peak when Bruce transitioned from street rat to working-class hero in terms of his voice and style, but it exists in his more sprawling operatic early work as well. I mean Jesus Christ, he was my age when he wrote this. It is so special that we, the people of Earth, have access to brilliant artists like Bruce who make us feel understood—alone at times but never lonesome. It makes me tear up while writing this, I have to admit. Yikes, I am gushing. Now you know why I took it upon myself to review all the man’s albums.

There are also times when I wish I could view the world with as much hope as Bruce does. I am truthfully jealous of his spirituality and how it grounds him, allowing light to enter his psyche when he needs it most. “I’ll See You in My Dreams” is a prime example of this. Death is difficult to deal with. We all think about our own from time to time—people are naturally interested in their own mortality because of how strange it can feel to be here one minute and gone the next. This closing track reassures Bruce’s departed loved ones that they still exist because he can see them in his dreams and still feel bonded to them enough for grief to run its course. Other people do not have the luxury of viewing death this way and building the courage to healthily move on. Do not get me wrong, I know for a fact Bruce was not born like this and that it took arduous struggle and despair to arrive at this beacon of faith. However, many of us only aspire to be on the other side of it because as Bruce sings “the road is long and seeming without end.”

Curtain call. Ladies and gentlemen, the heart stoppin, pants droppin, booty shakin, love making, history makin, (ugh) viagara takin, legendary…