Here we are at the end of the road with Springsteen’s final studio album.
At least, for now. Within a few days we’ll have seven previously unreleased studio albums to absorb and while Tracks isn’t included in this rundown, the albums that make up Tracks II: The Lost Albums are just that, full studio albums. There’s also confirmation that, along with Tracks III (ffs, that vault must have been huge) Bruce also has a new solo studio album ‘in the can’ earmarked for a 2026 release. It’s like he doesn’t read this blog with the amount of work he’s lining up for me.*
Where was I? Oh, yes, for now. Letter To You was an album that came by relative surprise in its timing mid pandemic (he’d managed get the band together for a week at the end of the previous year**) and in its absolute quality and power. Letter to You feels like a much-needed warm hug from an old friend you didn’t expect to see again —if that friend was a thunderous barroom preacher with a worn leather jacket, a telecaster slung over his back and a saxophone-wielding mate waiting in the car.
If this turns out to be the last E Street Band powered album, it’s one hell of a bow out; it’s a combination of everything that was and still is great about it with relatively minimal production or overdub. Springsteen calls back to his past magnificently – the record bristles with revisited old chestnuts like ‘Janey Needs a Shooter’, the mildly Dylan-esque ‘Song for Orphans’, and the swaggering ‘If I Was the Priest’ rubbing shoulders with new tracks like ‘Burnin’ Train’ and ‘Last Man Standing’ that bring the E Street Band’s stadium roar back in full force. While at times there’s an odd juxtaposition between songs written by Thesaurus Bruce and One-Phrase-Repeated-Over-and-Over Bruce, the combination is a winner. It’s like we’ve run into him at a bar and he just had to tell us one last story (or twelve).
Where this sits in the overall Springsteen album run-down I’ve yet to figure out but Letter To You is certainly his strongest and most consistently spot-on since Magic. That it’s the first time since The River that the band worked through songs without having had them demoed first is also clear – there’s a sense of spontaneity and freshness in the arrangements that hasn’t been heard in decades. There’s very little to nitpick about in Letter To You but…
Least: The Power of Prayer
While ‘Rainmaker’ hasn’t aged as well as it could have and ‘House of a Thousand Guitars’ is a little let down by the repetition of its title, ‘The Power of Prayer’ is absolutely the weakest link on an otherwise indecently strong album. Feeling more like it would be at home on Working on a Dream, Springsteen’s gospel inclinations here come off less like a heartfelt epiphany and more like a cliche-laden preacher hitting the stage unprepared. It’s an empty-cliche-ridden snoozer for me, it aims high and wants to hit that uplifting spiritual power of earlier efforts but leans on formula instead rather than feeling. I mean – when was the last time you ran your fingers through the hair of your significant other and thought ‘that’s the power of prayer’***? It may well be sincere but so is a 99p greeting card from Sainsbury’s.
Most: Ghosts
Hands down the album’s finest, Ghosts charges in on a revved-up E Street engine and never lets off. It’s a swirling elegy for lost bandmates and the magic they created together but manages to balance that sense of nostalgia with catharsis. Time passes and moves even for our heroes. You feel old, you feel alive but, for these glorious five and a half minutes you feel together with Bruce and the E Street Band.
What makes ‘Ghosts’ – and the best of this album – work so well in 2020 and 2025 is the sense that these songs didn’t spend too much time in gestation. There’s no feeling of over-working or heavy production. Bruce isn’t trying to venture into a different sonic direction here. He doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel, just crank up the Chevy and happily barrel down memory lane.
Letter to You is the grown-up version of Born to Run, with a few hands dragging in sentimental baggage. It’s occasionally corny, but mostly full-blooded and triumphant. And when ‘Ghosts’ kicks in, you remember why you climbed in the passenger seat in the first place: for the ride, for the stories, and for the shared scars of friendship and loss. Life ain’t always a beauty but, hey, it’s alright.
*Of course he does.
** Two thoughts – chronologically this places those sessions in the same year as the final Western Stars sessions as well as those for Twilight Hours on Tracks II. Secondly: these songs were written following a bout of writers’ block and after the death of his friend and on an acoustic guitar given to him by a fan after one of his “Springsteen on Broadway” shows. That’s one hell of a burst of creativity.
***as a Humanist the answer is ‘never.’
Mumbling About... 
“Last Man Standing” and “I’ll See You In My Dreams” are both more powerful when, in concert, he plays them by himself. As good as “Ghosts” is, my personal favorite is “If I Were a Priest.”
Correction: “Was the Priest.” Oops. 🤭
So many of his songs change spectacularly when played live but, yeah; what I’ve seen of these two live is goosebump territory.
I remember I wrote about the album at the time it came out and just revisited my quite enthusiastic review to refresh my memory! I completely agree with you “Letter to You” felt like the Springsteen I had come to love, backed by the mighty E Street Band. It was very welcome, especially following “Western Stars” – that album simply didn’t do it for me.
As you noted, we’re about to be gifted with the massive “Tracks II: The Lost Albums.” Six songs are already out, suggesting to me this collection might be a mixed bag – still, kudos to Bruce for putting it out!
Yes…. mixed bag is how I’m feeling about it. Some of the stuff has left me thinking it was in the vault for a reason. The stuff I’ve heard from Faithless and Twilight Hours specifically are dreary.
However, very much looking forward to the Philadelphia Sessions album, Inyo (love that Joad style stuff all day long) and the ’83 Garage Sessions is promising too. I’ve had the vast majority of it on a boot’ for some years (I think I covered it on here somewhere) and these are some of his best and have heard snippets of them as cleaned up for this release and they sound great.
This one does have some juice in it. “Big black train comin down the track” then some more ‘Burnin Train’. Bruce just carries that torch for the fascination with the big steel. I hear a lot of hid old records on this one. The River, Darkness …
Springsteen train songs, man… there’s something special about them, even those that never made the ‘cut’ (your eyes look like a leavin’ train, they keep on dragging me down). Have to wonder if there’s any to be had across tomorrow’s Sprinsgteen Mega Drop.
Plenty of great callbacks on here – the recording process (have you seen the Apple Music doc that followed it?) adds to that feel. Gives it a gorgeous, organic lived-in feel that’d been missing for a while I think.
You keep up with Bruce more than I do. I have kinda fell by the wayside. I am in the dark on this release. I trust your taste and you have me curious on this new/old stuff. I did dig ‘Tracks’ and could pick out the eras pretty accurately by the sound and vibe for the most part.
Oh yeah the “train” thing hits a lot of people I like, Bruce, Merle, Cash and a bunch more. I tell you it permeates through my music pile. Interesting stuff Tony.
Am I off track or did ‘Only The Strong Survive ‘ miss your pen? I know they were covers but I’d be curious on how it hit you?
It hasn’t hit me if I’m honest – haven’t listened to it even the once. Wasn’t a fan of that which I heard by way of singles and not sure I could rate their strengths as such.
He has always had his foot in these waters. Goes back to his listening to songs on the radio. Southside, Steve, J Geils Bruce introduced me to lots of these kinds of artists but the way they played it back then had a lot more guts and punch to me. ‘Survive’ is cleaned up and works but sounds like he might have been talked into it. You and I could pull him into the studio and strip it down and maybe let him lose on some Band songs, throw in some rockabilly, country blues.
Good answer Tony. I havent pulled the trigger on the Broadway thing or his ‘Renegades’ collab. No interest
I should really hear this one sometime. ‘Jeannie Needs a Shooter’ is one of my Zevon favourites, I think Springsteen got a cowrite but mainly supplied the title? And this song is entirely different.
Funny how you finished just before the seven new ones.
Crikey – so you’ve asked a corker here but: Springsteen actually wrote and recored the song back for The Wild, The Innocent… which makes sense age-wise if you look at the surprisingly graphic sexual nature of it.
There are studio logs of it being attempted for Born To Run too and appeared in early track listings Bruce put together.
Zevon hears about the song – title only – from Landau around this point and loves the title. Begs Springsteen to hear it, Boss says ‘no dice’ but allows him to use the title write something of his own instead.
Zevon comes back with one verse to play and uses this to bait Springsteen into writing the remainder with him.
Cool – didn’t realise Springsteen finished it off with him.
Tony, I think you’ve earned your shot and I think you should invent your own Springsteen LP next and give us the least and most on that.
For mine, I’m going for his alternate world 1981 LP ‘Sparkplug’, my fave track is, of course ‘Springback NJ’ about an unsatisfied man who should never have left the army and tries, unsuccessfully, to win back his childhood sweetheart via a heist. My least fave is, the big hit ‘Dancin’ With Diane’ which although has plenty of go in it, was just a bit too sugary for my tastes – I mean the bit where he lists all the songs that he danced to with her from high school, through their wedding, to his retirement do, was a bit yuk.
Sparkplug definitely has it’s moments but, like many of his, sounds very much of its time.
I think the worst offender has to be his multiverse ’99 album Strange Tides. There are some nuggets here, for sure, like the moving ‘Lost Mornings’ which feel like a call back to his earlier “swallowed the dictionary” work to lament the problems of hitting the snooze button too many times as a metaphor for letting life pass us by.
However the choice of Terry Date as a producer, while bold, was miscalculated (maybe Brendan O’Brien was busy?) and too much of it feels forced and desperate to stay relevant. Did we really need the nu-metal flavoured ‘Suffocation’ with Bruce’s ill-advised rap, complete with a bizarre call-out to the A40 and ‘sweating like a Scouser in Dixons’? No, we didn’t.
I may love you Tony. BUT we’re going to have to agree to disagree about ‘Suffocation’ I think it may be his third best moment after both ‘Born’ tunes.
You’re going to tell me the track with Fred Durst is a masterpiece next…
‘The Steel Plant Just Closed (BITCH!!)’, has its moments…
I’ll admit Adam Sandler as Bruce made for an amusing music video – better in hindsight than it was when MTV was playing it way too often.