Singer describes ‘freight train bearing down’ on him in interview ahead of release of new autobiography Born to Run

Bruce Springsteen has written of his long battle with depression and his difficult relationship with his father, in his forthcoming autobiography Born to Run.

The 66-year-old singer – nicknamed the Boss – reveals that he first saw a psychotherapist more than three decades ago and that his wife, the singer Patti Scialfa, has witnessed his bouts of mental illness.

In what has been one of the most anticipated rock memoirs for years, Springsteen describes how he struggled with depression at the time of his 2012 album Wrecking Ball, which included the song This Depression.

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“I was crushed between 60 and 62, good for a year, and out again from 63 to 64,” he writes. “Not a good record. Patti will observe a freight train bearing down, loaded with nitroglycerin and running quickly out of track … she gets me to the doctors and says: ‘This man needs a pill.’”

In an interview with Vanity Fair before the book’s release, Springsteen voiced fears he would be affected in the same way as his father, Douglas, had been. “You don’t know the illness’s parameters,” he told the magazine. “Can I get sick enough to where I become a lot more like my father than I thought I might?”

In his book, Springsteen says his father had relatives with mental health issues, including agoraphobia and hair-pulling disorders, which were undiagnosed or not discussed. “As a child, it was simply mysterious, embarrassing and ordinary,” he writes.



In the interview he detailed his troubled relationship with his father, recalling that Springsteen Sr was unable to tell his son “I love you” before his death in 1998. “You’d hear his voice breaking up, but he couldn’t get out the words,” he said.



Born to Run is published by Simon & Schuster on 27 September. Springsteen has previously written that the book will be both “a continuation of that story and a search into its origins”. He noted that one of the questions he was often asked was “How do you do it?” and said Born to Run tried to answer both how and why.



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The memoir shares its title with Springsteen’s most famous song, which he wrote at the age of 24 and still plays at the end of his shows. “It’s still at the centre of my work, that song,” Springsteen said. “When it comes up every night, within the show, it’s monumental. A good song gathers the years in. It’s why you can sing it with such conviction 40 years after it’s been written. A good song takes on more meaning as the years pass by.”

Last month Springsteen teased fans by publishing a brief foreword from Born to Run, the memoir, on his website. It read: “I come from a boardwalk town where almost everything is tinged with a bit of fraud. So am I.

“By 20 no race-car-driving rebel, I was a guitar player on the streets of Asbury Park and already a member in good standing amongst those who ‘lie’ in service of the truth … artists, with a small ‘a’. But I held four clean aces. I had youth, almost a decade of hardcore bar band experience, a good group of homegrown musicians who were attuned to my performance style and a story to tell.”

Ian Chapman, chief executive of Simon & Schuster UK, said when the book was announced in February: “If you were to ask any publisher to name a cultural figure whose autobiography would provoke the greatest enthusiasm, Bruce Springsteen’s name would be on every list. Beyond being one of the most admired individuals in the world, he is a captivating storyteller with a unique way of expressing himself.”

Springsteen has been touring with his E Street Band since January following last year’s release of The Ties That Bind, a box set of sessions for his 1980 double album The River. An album of new songs is expected from the musician next year.