As
Western Stars comes to a close, the countrypolitan orchestral swoops found throughout the album are replaced by gentle acoustic fingerpicking, plaintive piano, muted pedal steel guitar and mallet-struck tom-toms. And the weather-beaten men who inhabit the record are replaced by a long-shuttered motel, outside of which Springsteen recalls an affair he once had there and drinks to its memory.
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Much of the material on
Letter to You was inspired by the 2018 death of George Theiss, the singer of Springsteen's first band, the Castiles. But it's not hard to hear the record's lovely final track, "I'll See You in My Dreams," and think Springsteen is also singing about late E Street Band members Clarence Clemons and Danny Federici. As with