Rock and roll legend Bruce Springsteen has revealed that he was crippled by depression in his early 60s.
Passages from Springsteen’s upcoming autobiography Born To Run see the singer open up about his struggles with mental health. The excerpts featured in American magazine Vanity Fair, alongside an interview with The Boss himself.
The book contains a passage that reveals his wife, Patti, is the only one to truly notice his episodes: “Patti will observe a freight train bearing down, loaded with nitroglycerin and running quickly out of track,” he said. “She gets me to the doctors and says, ‘This man needs a pill’.”
One of these episodes came hard at the beginning of Springsteen’s 60s – “I was crushed between sixty and sixty-two, good for a year and out again from sixty-three to sixty-four. Not a good record.” He is now 66.
“You don’t know the illness’s parameters,” he said. “Can I get sick enough to where I become a lot more like my father than I thought I might?”
Born To Run reveals that Springsteen comes from a family overrun with mental illness, though Bruce simply writes “As a child, it was simply mysterious, embarrassing and ordinary.”
Born to Run will be released on September 27, 2016.
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