Bruce Springsteen, Manhood and Mental Health
Bruce Springsteen has been trying to heal himself while trying to heal us. What does that word mean when you’ve been wounded, as a male, since childhood? And in a world telling you to suck it up, be tough, not complain, and not cry, ever?
It is a confounding question I have been asking myself since a kid, and a conundrum Bruce Springsteen, one of America’s most self-reflective and prolific singers for six decades, has been grappling with as well.
I cannot recall when I first heard Springsteen’s thick-throated soul rush of a voice, or began to pay attention to his Flannery O’Connor-like storytelling, or when I became captivated by his street-news magnetism.
But I do know that as I sat in a movie theater absorbing Deliver Me from Nowhere, the hypnotic new film about Springsteen’s struggle to make his now historic Nebraska album in 1982, I became quite affected.
Author's summary: Exploring Bruce Springsteen's impact on manhood and mental health.