Bruce Springsteen’s “Letter to You” centers on the vocalist writing a letter to someone whom he obviously loves. And whereas said individual can be loosely interpreted as perhaps a romantic interest, it actually reads more like one of his mentees, i.e. someone whom he feels a responsibility to impart his knowledge upon. And in that regard he is going all out, encapsulating all of his “happiness and… pain”, “hard times and good” into this note. And the implication is that he wants this person to understand all of the experiences he went through in life.

');var c=function(){cf.showAsyncAd(opts)};if(typeof window.cf !== 'undefined')c();else{cf_async=!0;var r=document.createElement("script"),s=document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];r.async=!0;r.src="//";r.readyState?r.onreadystatechange=function(){if("loaded"==r.readyState||"complete"==r.readyState)r.onreadystatechange=null,c()}:r.onload=c;s.parentNode.insertBefore(r,s)}; })();

Going a bit out on a limb, it may be that the intended addressee is the listening audience itself, i.e. the Boss’s fanbase. And considering that he is still making music into his senior years and “Letter to You” is also the name of the album this song is featured on, perhaps the entire project is meant to give his listeners more of a glimpse into his personal history.