Nothing was known about it and so everybody just suffered through it

Bruce Springsteen has said “nothing was known” about mental health in the ‘50s and ‘60s, so “everybody just suffered through it”.

The Boss has been speaking about his personal life in anticipation of the release of Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, a biopic that explores the period of conflict and personal struggle that Springsteen experienced as he wrote and recorded his acclaimed 1982 album ‘Nebraska’.

Ahead of the film’s release in cinemas on Friday (October 24), Springsteen appeared on BBC Radio 2’s Breakfast Show with Scott Mills, where he was asked how comfortable he felt speaking openly about his mental health struggles.

“I grew up in the ‘50s and ‘60s you know – I was one to 10 in the ‘50s and my parents left for California when I was 18 or 19, so that was the extent of which I knew my dad and those were his very troubled years,” he said. “And like I said, the mental illness ran through my families.

“I had aunts very, very ill. I had cousins who were very ill. And I just got used to it as being, that was my family, and these were the people that I loved. But no one got any help whatsoever. You know, there was no medication, there was no interactions with any psychological help and people were really simply left on their own. You know it was just there – nothing was known about it and so everybody just suffered through it.”

When asked about the help that he personally sought out for his mental health during the period depicted in the film, Springsteen said: “Yeah I was very lucky you know and Jeremy really captures sort of my deterioration at that time when I had my first breakdown really is what it was. And though I didn’t know what was going on, I was lucky enough at that point to have a relationship with Mr. Landau, John Landau, and he’s had experience in this area and got me to some folks that really were able to help me out at the time.”

He added: “And I was totally embarrassed. And for years, I would almost disguise myself before going into the psychiatrist’s office. I had my baseball hat on and my glasses and I’m looking around and I’m sneaking in as fast as I can.”

“Just because, you know, I was grown up to believe that it was embarrassing to ask for that kind of help and need that kind of help. And it took me years to get used to just feeling fine and confident about walking into the office. It was so forbidden in the world that I grew up in that it took me a long time to get used to it, and now it has been a big part of…half of my life.”

The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White plays Springsteen in the new film, and NME have awarded it four stars, writing: “Those 10 tracks on ‘Nebraska’ become a lifeline for Springsteen, described as ‘the only thing I can still believe in’ at a point where his inner world was imploding. What Deliver Me From Nowhere shows well is just how commercial success was a distant second to Springsteen – a man who had no choice but to rip those Nebraska songs from his wounded heart.”

Springsteen recently revealed why he gave Deliver Me From Nowhere the go-ahead, despite it charting a “difficult” time in his life.

“You know, it’s really not a biopic,” he said. “It just takes a couple years out of my life when I was 31 and 32, and looks at them really at a time when I made this particular record, and when I went through some just difficult places in my life, you know. And, I’m old and I don’t give a fuck what I do now.”

Allen White performs a slew of Springsteen songs in the film, alongside the likes of Rival Sons‘ Jay Buchanan, Aksel Coe, Bobby Emmett, and Greta Van Fleet’s Jake and Sam F. Kiszka. They will be compiled onto a soundtrack album that will come out on December 5.

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