Just seven months ago, Bruce Springsteen released Letter To You, an album that he recorded in quarantine with his E Street Bandmates. It was good! It had some bangers! “Ghosts“? That song rips! Shortly before the LP’s release, Springsteen celebrated his 70th birthday, and he isn’t going to let that milestone slow him down. Last night, while accepting the Woodie Guthrie Prize, Springsteen said that he’ll have another new record out “soon.”

Springsteen is now the eighth recipient of the Woody Guthrie Prize, which the Woody Guthrie Center awards to artists who work in the spirit of Guthrie, the great crusading folksinger. (In the past the same award has gone to Pete Seeger, Mavis Staples, Kris Kristofferson, Norman Lear, John Mellencamp, Chuck D, and Joan Baez.) As App reports, Springsteen accepted the award in a livestream from his house in New Jersey. Springsteen and Guthrie’s daughter Nora appeared on the livestream with host Robert Santelli. During the show, Springsteen enthused about Guthrie’s legacy and performed Guthrie’s songs “Tom Joad” and “Deportee (Plane Wreck At Los Gatos)” as well as his own “Across The Border” and “The Ghost Of Tom Joad.”

During the proceedings, Springsteen just casually mentioned that the state of California figured heavily into his “most topical” songwriting: “The ’90s, the 2000s, and even now on a record coming out soon set largely in the West. So I got very involved in telling those Western stories through my work.” So maybe Springsteen’s next album will work as a kind of companion piece to Western Stars, which came out in 2019 and which was also largely set in California. We’ll see!