the times | Saturday October 17 2020 2GM 41
News
Bruce Springsteen’s
Letter to You
Apple TV+
HHHHI
Golly this is needed. We may be speeding
towards hell but the tunes playing in the
handcart are belters. Thom Zimny’s
life-affirming documentary, showing
from next week on the Apple TV+
streaming service, tells the story of the
making of Bruce Springsteen’s fabulous
new album, Letter to You.
In an attempt to recapture the
immediacy of his youth, the Boss
gathered his E Street Band last autumn
country-rock epic that uses Western
imagery to tell the story of Christ (“Jesus
is standing in a doorway, six-gun drawn.. .”). Another, Song for Orphans, recalls
Bob Dylan (“The brother that I never
had”), who once said that if Springsteen
“wasn’t careful he was going to use up
the entire English language”.
Yes, he can be wordy and his narration
sometimes veers towards the pompous:
“As reliable as the rhythmic beating of
my heart is my need to talk to you,” goes
one slightly icky line. Who cares,
though, when the music and the
camaraderie are as transcendent as
this? Ghosts, a song about the joy of
being in a band (“I’m alive and I’m
coming home”) is a moment of thrilling,
rolling splendour.
“Perfect, perfect!” Springsteen says after
they finish the take. It’s hard to argue.
On Apple TV+ from October 23
pennies on rail tracks and his
early band the Castiles. You can
see why his head is in the
past. The album
includes three tracks
that he wrote in
the Seventies
but are only
now seeing
the light of
day. Why on
earth did he
think they
weren’t
good
enough
back
then? One
of them, If I
Was the Priest,
is the highlight
of the film, a rollickingbei
ing
The Boss and his
band of brothers
revive glory days
at his home studio in snowy New Jersey
and recorded the whole thing in five
days. Steve Van Zandt, the guitarist, calls
it “our Beatles schedule”, referring to the
Fab Four’s marathon early recording
sessions. Most of the E Street Band are
about 70 but what they lack in vigour
they make up for in unflustered
brilliance, from the piano of Roy Bittan
to the saxophone of Jake Clemons and
the drums of Max Weinberg.
Springsteen’s singing is mighty and he
looks indecently good for 71. You could
fit two of him into Van Zandt.
It’s full of intimate euphoria, with
hugs, rounds of shots and a kiss between
Springsteen and his wife of 30 years,
Patti Scialfa. Zimny shoots in black and
white and intersperses the songs, most of
them featured in full, with Springsteen’s
reminiscences of family funerals, leavingTV Ed Potton The new album
includes three
unreleased songs
Springsteen wrote
in the Seventies