Watch Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band debut songs from Letter To You on Saturday Night Live

By Paul Brannigan
( Classic Rock )
published

Bruce Springsteen and his band perform Ghosts and I’ll See You In My Dreams live for the first time on SNL

Springsteen
(Image credit: Saturday Night Live / NBC)

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed a brace of songs from their acclaimed Letter To You album for the first time on the December 12 edition of long-running US TV show Saturday Night Live. 

Due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, Springsteen has been unable to play any of the songs from his twentieth studio album, released on October 23, in front of a live audience, so the opportunity to debut Ghosts and I’ll See You In My Dreams for a small studio audience and a much larger TV audience was clearly one he and his band relished.

Adhering to Covid-19 precautions meant that the E Street Band were without its founding bassist Garry Tallent and violinist Soozie Tyrell for the TV performance, with Jack Daley of the Disciples of Soul subbing for Tallent. Springsteen and the E Street Band last last appeared on Saturday Night Live in 2015.

Letter To You, hailed in Classic Rock magazine as “as young at heart as any of Springsteen’s proudest moments”, is out now on Columbia. As yet, no live dates have been announced in support of the album. 

Paul Brannigan
Paul Brannigan
Contributing Editor, Louder

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.