Bruce Springsteen's Letter to You: Turns out The Boss is better, or at least cheaper, seen than heard

By Liam Lacey

Rating: B

Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You, the documentary about the making of Bruce Springsteen’s 20th album, dropped on Thursday on Apple TV + to coincide with the album’s release. 

The film is directed by Springsteen’s go-to videographer, Thom Zimny (this is his seventh Springsteen doc), and it plays like a combination of a “making of” promotional video, as well as a kind of luxurious illustrated extra, with Springsteen’s own voice-over taking the place of liner notes.

Springsteen and company lay down tracks in the key of E Street in Letter to You.

Letter to You was filmed in black-and-white over five days last November, along with the E Street Band,  in Springsteen’s barn-like New Jersey studio. All the instrumentation and vocals were recorded live and, though the band members haven’t recorded together since 2014, they fall into their parts on the new songs without hesitation. 

The film is not exactly a song-by-song reconstruction of the album:  There are breaks for chatter and adjustments. And we jump back and forth between rough first takes and final versions, with each day ending with a celebratory round of shots.

“I’m in the middle of a 45-year conversation with these men and women I’m surrounded by,” says Springsteen at the beginning of the film. In truth, it’s more of a monologue, or perhaps a conversation in his head. 

Bruce, as we see in the studio instructing his engineer and E Street bandmates, really does run the show with a strong hand. The “Boss” label is not ironic, though he maintains some levity (“Roy -- don’t play it up higher, just don’t play it so LOW.”).

PROUDLY SUPPORTS ORIGINAL-CIN

 The apparent inspiration for the album, and particularly the title song, was the death of Springsteen’s friend George Theiss, a guitarist and singer in Springsteen’s late sixties’ band, The Castiles. The memorial theme also connects with acknowledgements of late E Street pals, Danny Federici and Clarence Clemons.  

Mortality, reminiscences, and the healing power of music are the big themes here. Springsteen percussively strums his guitar and growls, “Big black train’ comin’ down the track, blow your whistle long and long. One minute you’re here, next minute you’re gone.”

For some of us fans of the man - those who have bought the records, seen the legendary live shows, read the memoir and watched the Netflix version of his Broadway show – it must be acknowledged that his autobiographical soul-mining, as well as the melodies and arrangements, feel over-familiar.  

But the songs here are not all mournful dirges and chest-pounding anthems.  Three songs on the new album hail from way back on a 1972 demo: Janey Needs a Shooter, If I Was the Priest, and Songs for Orphans. They feel loose and liberating, thanks to the verbal tossed-salad of Springsteen’s early “new Dylan” phrase: “Well the doorstep blanket weaver Madonna pushes bells. From house to house I see her givin’ kisses and wishin’ well.” 

Consistent with the “letter” conceit of the album’s title, each song gets a commentary from Springsteen. These, unfortunately, were written and then read aloud in voice-over. Too often, Springsteen’s prose sounds like an imitation of a rock journalist writing about Springsteen (“We were like a finely-tuned instrument of flexibility and power!”).

With the words, the coffee-table monochrome images of the aged troubadours hard at joyful labour, and the moody drone shots of the snow-covered New Jersey woods, Letter To You is an opportunity to listen to the new album at a bargain:  The Apple Plus subscription, cancellable at any time, costs $5.99 a month - about half the price of downloading the album.

Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You. Directed by Tom Zimny. Written by Bruce Springsteen. With Bruce Springsteen, Max Weinberg, Roy Bittan, Nils Lofgren, Steven Van Zandt, Jake Clemons and Patti Scialfa. Available with a subscription to Apple TV +