Bruce Springsteen’s lightning-fast ‘Letters to You’ stuns Steven Van Zandt: ‘Never happens’

The speed at which Bruce Springsteen created his 2020 album “Letters to You” surprised E Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt.

“He wrote it in two weeks, which never happens,” Van Zandt, 73, told The Post. “We recorded it in four days, which never happens.”

Featuring songs such as “Burnin’ Train,” “Last Man Standing” and “Ghosts,” the record forms the basis of Springsteen’s current world tour, the band’s first in more than six years, which will run through summer 2025.

The journey — from rehearsals to the international arena — is recounted in the new Hulu documentary “Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band,” arriving Oct. 25.

“I knew it was going to be different because the album was different,” Van Zandt, 73, said of the ongoing tour.

“They never had a theme, never had an album that was thematically focused, you know. Perhaps only ‘The Rising’ comes to mind, but not so literally. …He knew what he wanted to say as soon as he wrote it.”

“It was just waiting to be born, this thing, you know? And we couldn’t wait to play it. We knew it was going to be great live.”

A central theme of the 75-year-old rocker’s album is mortality.

“It requires a series of new discussions about how we do this and make sure it works,” Van Zandt said in a more introspective tone about the specific tour.

“And part of it was to balance the very specific theme of the album and the tour of mortality. Balancing it with life force will be an absolute necessity.

The colorful Little Steven plays a major role in the documentary, but manager Jon Landau says some of his biggest hits are on the cutting room floor.

Landau said, “By the way, you should have seen the stuff we cut on Stevie.” “We will discuss that later!”