'Still An Incredible Experience': 50 Years In, Bruce Springsteen Still Has Magic Up His Sleeve

If you had have said to me at the start of this year that there was going to be a global pandemic and that I'd be on a Zoom call with Bruce Springsteen, I probably would have thought that the former was more likely than the latter. But somehow, in a year that keeps surprising, that's where I found myself on an October Thursday morning. 

With a career spanning five decades, Springsteen's influence is insurmountable. His music has inspired films, books, bands, solo artists, writers and everyone and everything in between (I can attest, I even had a line of his in my wedding speech). So 47 years on from the release of his debut album, what is there left for Bruce Springsteen to say and do? A lot it seems. 

His latest album, Letter To You, offers some of Springsteen's finest work to date and feels like a melding of his recent projects - the grandness of Western Stars, the endearing nature of Springsteen On Broadway, the vulnerability of the Born To Run memoir - with a little bit of the younger Springsteen years thrown in there too. 

"I had a close friend of mine from my very first band who was very, very ill and had a few weeks to live," shares Springsteen during the call. 

"And I went and I visited him down south where he lived. And he was the last serving member of my very first band besides myself. So when he passed away, it left just me. And it was a very strange feeling sort of thinking back to your youth and all of those people who meant so much to me at that time all being gone.

"So that started to... I wrote a song called Last Man Standing. And once I wrote that, the dam broke and all the other songs followed in about, oh, seven or 10 days."

The influence of this band mate - George Theiss - and their group The Castiles is all over Letter To You. Clarence Clemons and Danny Federici - the long-running E Street members who passed away in 2011 and 2008 respectively - are there too. 

"That’s the first time that I chose that as my subject, the music itself," explains Springsteen. 

"You know, it’s about rock'n'roll, it’s about being in a band over your lifetime, so it encompasses me reflecting on my first band with all my... with the early members from 1965, and reflecting on the band, of course, the E Street Band that I’ve been in now for the past 45 years.

"So yeah, the subject is the music itself and the world that we’ve created with our fans."

At 71, it seems like Springsteen's own mortality is dawning on him but it doesn't feel panicked; instead he's considered and productive. Letter To You sees Springsteen and his legendary crew challenge themselves, opting to record the album entirely live over the course of five days at Springsteen and wife Patti Scialfa's studio at home in New Jersey. 

"Songwriting is generally a terrifying and incredibly fulfilling experience."

"We actually recorded the record in four days and on the fifth we listened and told stories, so it was just a great process, you know," he says.

"You can’t predict how these things are going to happen. Spent about three hours a song. The band played entirely live. All of the vocals are first takes.

"So it was just a unique and wonderful experience for us to have so far down the road, you know. It was a real throwback to, if I think about the few other songs that I’d say we cut everything live, there was Darkness On The Edge Of Town from Darkness..., Born In The USA from Born In The USA, but most of the songs, even when we cut the band live, the vocals would be overdubbed, you know. Not in this case.

"I usually make demos, which is always a mistake because you make a demo and you get very attached to it and then, you know, you don’t want to lose things on it," he continues. "And so the first thing that I didn’t do was I didn’t do any demos, which the band suggested. Somebody said, ‘Hey, don’t demo anything. That way the first time you hear it, you’ll hear it fresh with the band playing it.’

"So I just recorded them on my little iPhone with just me and acoustic guitar, and I didn’t do anything else until the band came into the studio. Then I would stand and play the rest of the song for the band. They’d learn it and then we’d go in, into the booth and into the room and perform it."

Springsteen has already cemented himself as one of the greats - his songwriting is legendary, his live shows epic and his work ethic near unrivalled. He could be the biggest "rock star" in the world, lock himself away and hold his cards close to his chest; instead he opens the doors and lets everyone in, something that is highlighted in the album's accompanying documentary (and our call too, where he is so welcoming in fact that at one point when referring to his studio Springsteen actually moves his chair back and himself to the side to make sure everyone can see what he is referencing).

The Letter To You film, directed by long-time collaborator Thom Zimny, is a stunning depiction of this. Shot entirely in black and white, the film is a real 'fly on the wall' look at the making of the album (a rarity from artists of Springsteen's stature) and what recording with 'The Boss' is really like. 

It's another example of the candour that the older Springsteen displays. In the Broadway show he spoke of a magician revealing his tricks; in Letter To You it's like he's giving you the step-by-step of how to do it yourself. But yet, he continues to pull a rabbit out of his hat and dazzle you none the less - even if he's not quite sure where the rabbit came from. 

"Songwriting is generally a terrifying and incredibly fulfilling experience. It’s terrifying because you never know if you’re ever gonna do it again, because it’s a magic trick - how it happens, I don’t know," he says on the call.

"I’ve done it for 50 years. I don’t know how a song takes place and I don’t know anyone who’s ever been able to explain it because you pull something from nothing and you create something physical from it. 

"It’s just in the air. It’s in your emotions. It’s in your mind. It’s in your soul, your spirit, your heart, your intellect, and you just create... you pull something out of the air and create something. So there’s an element of it that’s quite frightening in a sense, and then there’s another element when it does happen and something’s good, it’s one of the most wonderful feelings in my life, you know.

"It’s like 'yes! There’s another one.' You know, so it’s still an incredible experience..."

Bruce Springsteen's Letter To You is out now.