Orel Family

There's an old saying, "sometimes you don't know what you had until it's gone." There's a corollary, I think: "sometimes you don't know what you need  until it shows up." Bruce Springsteen's next album, "Letter To You", won't be officially released for another 8 days, but in the finest internet tradition it leaked today. And, just a few seconds in, I realized just how much I needed  this record. From the opening notes of the first track, "One Minute You're Here," I could feel the world melting away with all its stresses and turmoil. The very first line in "Big black train comin' down the track." This is not a mystery ride; we've been around long enough to know exactly where the train is going. The track is melancholy; someone has disappeared, maybe forever. The singer may be next. Bruce is singing in his lower register, first with guitar, then the arrangement builds, and I'm immersed. And calm...

This morning Bruce Springsteen announced his latest album, "Letter to You," along with the release of the album's first single, the title track of the album. In a message to twitter this evening, Springsteen wrote , “I love the emotional nature of Letter To You... We made the album in only five days, and it turned out to be one of the greatest recording experiences I’ve ever had.” The album, recorded with the E Street Band primarily in late 2019 at Bruce's home in New Jersey, contains 3 tracks that Bruce originally wrote in the 1970's, along with "recently written" songs, per the press release. The 3 older tracks, well known the Springsteen collectors but virtually unknown otherwise, include "If I Was the Priest," a song that was a centerpiece of Springsteen's audition for John Hammond at Columbia Records in 1972. For a TV special on John Hammond in the mid-1980s, Hammond and Springsteen recorded a conversation. Hammond said, ...