Bruce’s Depression Heard In His Music

Bruce Springsteen has finally come out and admitted to the New Yorker what anyone who listens to his music has known for years. The Boss suffers from depression.

Bruce says his ambitions have been driven by three separate but connected emotions, “fear, self loathing, and self hatred”. We can hear that not only in his music but in the stories he used to tell in the early concerts. We heard stories of battling with his father over his career choice, growing up poor in Freehold and sleeping on the roof to avoid what was going on inside.

It’s from those experiences that an artist can draw his best material and put it on paper to not only unburden himself, but to go through a form of therapy each times he performs or “relives” it. When you look at the length of Bruce’s shows, you can see how long those sessions were. Groucho Marx was once asked if he ever knew sadness and replied “If I didn’t know sadness, I couldn’t make you laugh”

When you look at lists of the most depressing songs, The River is usually on it somewhere.

What is the most depressing song you’ve ever heard?