(The Pencil Storm Editorial Board is fully aware that this week’s Saturday Night Special was supposed to be our Biden Bash Victory Celebration, but World War II buff Ricki C. pointed out that Germany went from being a Democratic Republic to a Hitler dictatorship in only 4 short years, and we didn’t wanna jinx things, so we’re subbing in Ricki’s review of Bruce Springsteen for tonight. Tune in next Saturday - we hope - for our Biden Victory Bash.)
Okay, let’s face facts, there were pretty much only two ways this review was gonna go: 1) Is Ricki C. going to just review – in a rather professional, rational 500 words or less – what’s in the grooves (or whatever CD’s are made of) of the new Bruce release, or 2) Is Ricki gonna go off on one of his longwinded Saturday Night Live Drunk Uncle “I saw The Jimi Hendrix Experience and The Doors live in 1968 and Bob Dylan’s first electric tour in 1965 and you fuckin’ upstart kids don’t know SHIT about real rock & roll” down-the-rabbit-hole tirades?
So I decided to do both………
WHAT’S IN THE GROOVES
Letter To You is a solidly workmanlike Bruce Springsteen rock & roll record, and that is simultaneously the BEST and the WORST thing I can say about it. It’s ABSOLUTELY far & away better than its predecessor – Western Stars – that saw Bruce mining laid-back 1970’s Southern California pop ala Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb territory for inspiration. (You can check out my review of that album & film here – Movie Review: Western Stars – if you like, but truthfully, I wouldn’t bother if I were you.)
From on-line stories I’ve read and a Daily Show interview I caught, the word from Bruce is that he wrote the song “Ghosts” right after he heard about the death of George Theiss – Springsteen’s last living bandmate from his first teenage-New-Jersey-garage-band The Castiles – and the rest of the album followed rapidly from there. The real problem here is that “Ghosts” is SO MUCH BETTER a song than the rest of the record that all the other tunes pale by comparison. (And my problem is that I first heard “Ghosts” in my car on Sirius/XM radio and that song ROARS out of the airwaves like a motherfucker. I know nobody listens to ANY kind of radio anymore – everything is Spotify and Pandora & the ilk – but I still love the randomness of radio. And I DEARLY love getting jolted by a brand-new tune out of the ether like that.)
So the rest of the record is just okay: Two songs – “If I Was The Priest” and “Song To Orphans” – were on Bruce’s demo tape for Columbia Records back in 1972 and were on the first Springsteen bootleg I ever bought. BOTH were better in those long-ago solo acoustic demo versions. “Letter To You” is a good song but a verse as cliched as “I took all the sunshine and the rain / All my happiness & pain / The dark evening stars and the morning sky of blue / And sent it in my letter to you,” just SHOULD NOT COME out of Bruce Springsteen’s mouth into a microphone and onto a record in 2020.
And that’s probably the real problem with the record: There is a VERY limited number of ways a rock & roll artist can still be making relevant music 47 YEARS AFTER THEY STARTED. The Who and The Rolling Stones do it by just simply NOT PUTTING OUT any new music to speak of (and the less said about Mick & Keith’s “Ghost Town” the better) and – pre-Covid pandemic – just going on endless “Farewell Tours” for rapidly-aging geezers like me. (Only I won’t go.)
Okay, that’s 430 of my allotted 500 words, so I’ve gotta wind this up: if you’re a Bruce Springsteen fan you’re gonna like – but not love – this album, but if you put on “Ghosts” and watch the video that accompanies it (see below), I hope it brings tears to your eyes as often as it does mine.
LONG-WINDED SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE DRUNK UNCLE TIRADE
I first heard Bruce Springsteen in the Pearl Alley Discs record store on 13th Avenue, just across the street from the Ohio State University campus on a cold Saturday afternoon in January, 1973, pretty soon after Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. was released. The first song – “Blinded By The Light” – kinda got by me, but as soon as “Growin’ Up” started and I heard Bruce sing, “Well I stood stone-like at midnight, suspended in my masquerade / And I combed my hair ‘til it was just right and commanded the night brigade,” I fuckin’ fell in love with the tune. Pearl Alley Discs has been gone from 13th Avenue for DECADES, but I bet I could go to whatever business it is today and show you right where I was standing when I heard that song that day.
I asked the hippie guy behind the counter who was playing and he said – rather derisively, I might add – “Oh, it’s some guy from Jersey named Bruce Springsteen. He’s one of those New Dylan’s”. I didn’t buy the record that day: disposable income was tight in 1973, and truthfully Bruce kinda lost me around “Mary Queen of Arkansas” and/or “The Angel.”
From there to here in an instant: Bruce Springsteen is STILL my favorite mass-market songwriter & performer. (My absolute favorite rock & roll songwriter is Elliott Murphy – who now resides & records in Paris and mostly performs in Europe – but you’re likely not familiar with him, so that’s a whole other blog for a whole ‘nother time.) I’ve seen every Bruce Springsteen tour since my first show at the Ohio Theater on April 5th, 1976, when the Born To Run album was new. I’ve bought every record – except the above-mentioned Western Stars – and once in early 1975 I borrowed one of my Service Merchandise co-workers cars and drove to the outskirts of Cleveland, Ohio to tape “Born To Run” off the radio because Kid Leo of WMMS-FM had an advance copy of the track and would play it at 4:55 pm every Friday to launch the weekend. And I didn’t have a driver’s license at the time. THAT’S the kind of rock & roll relationship I had – and have – with Bruce Springsteen.
To sum up: Bruce Springsteen is the person on whom I base all of my ideas on how great rock & roll music can be, and how great rock & roll music is. He’s never sold a song to a commercial; he’s never decided he could be an actor and made an idiotically bad movie; he’s made very few abjectly bad moves. (He did once open an album with the song “Outlaw Pete,” but everybody is entitled to a COUPLE of lapses in judgement.) He wrote “Incident On 57th Street.” He wrote “Backstreets.” He wrote “Born To Run,” for Chrissakes. He wrote “Candy’s Room.” He wrote “Darkness On The Edge Of Town.” He wrote “Cadillac Ranch.” He wrote “My Hometown.” He wrote “Brilliant Disguise.” He wrote “Human Touch” and at least twenty other songs that make my heart hurt with how good they are every single time I hear them. And he is, quite simply, the greatest rock & roll performer I have ever seen. - Ricki C. / November 13th, 2020.
Odds & ends from my “official” review above: Bruce wrote an incredibly moving song about the passing of his bandmate from his first band in 1965. I can only remember the names of TWO of my four bandmates from my first band in 1968 – Gary Davis (not the old blues musician) and Dennis O’Dowd – and I’m three years YOUNGER than Bruce. (Also, Colin is still IN his first band with Joe, Herb and Michael “Biggie” McDermott. Do you have ANY IDEA how jealous that makes me?)
The production on Letter To You – by Ron Aiello – pretty much couldn’t POSSIBLY be any more boring. It’s long been a rock & roll dream of mine that Bruce would deign to let Jack White produce a record for him: something with all frayed wires and plugs falling out of amps, over-driven drums and raggedy-ass background vocals. I bet Steve Van Zandt would love it, but the E Street Band are just so frickin’ PROFESSIONAL that they couldn’t possibly ever get anywhere near the Olympics.
Anyway, I could go on like this all day, but we’ve got a TV Party Tonight! to get to, so let’s rock………
What Bruce & the E Street Band looked like the first time I saw them, circa 1976…….
A full show from Passaic, New Jersey, on the Darkness On The Edge of Town Tour, 1978, my favorite Bruce tour EVER. (Strap in boys & girls, it’s three hours long in glorious black & white (“Movies are in color, rock & roll is black & white” - Ricki C. / “White Petticoats” / 2013), pick & choose at your leisure)…….
for the overly-caffeinated, short-attention span folks among us; some abbreviated, in-color 1978 tour footage…….
This review is humbly and affectionately dedicated to my two Bruce Springsteen best friends - Jodie Weaver and Chris Clinton - in the fond hope that in some post-Covid-19 time in 2021 (or 2022? God help us!) we get to see Bruce & the E Street Band play the songs from Letter To You live some night, someplace.
left to right; Jodie, Chris (he’s from Ireland!), Ricki C. / at a Cincinnati Bruce show, 2014