'It's usually okay' - Bruce Springsteen on his Catholic childhood, bouts of depression and tensions with his father

Bruce Springsteen sheds a glimpse into his Catholic upbringing.

Famous singer/songwriter Bruce Springsteen told "Desert Island Discs" his childhood was centered around "the church."

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Over his lengthy career, Springsteen admitted to a constant struggle with depression.

During the interview, he explained it was easier to call it a temporary "chemical imbalance" than admit he was depressed. He attempted to keep from "naming" it and believed he would eventually get over things.

"It is something that has been a part of my life," he shared. "It is usually okay, but like Churchill's 'black dog,' it still jumps up and bites you in the **** sometimes."

Presenter Kirsty Young asked what his earliest childhood memories were, to which he replied: "It's always the church, the church, the church. I think because it was the center of our existence.

"I think the thing I remember the most was the tall steeple at the end of the corner and the red bricks of the church. It was your second home. You lived there every Sunday and Friday.

"We saw every wedding, every funeral in town because we lived next door so there was always a show going on. Someone was always getting married or getting dead so it was an enormous center of my childhood life."

As he grew up, he described his mother was a fountain of "endless optimism" while relations with his father were "gruff."

Springsteen and his father had difficulties seeing eye-to-eye and he shared: "The qualities he had on the inside were the things I had on the outside, so I reminded him of his frailty."

Perhaps it was the deep roots centered around Christianity that he found himself after years of struggling through bouts of depression and tensions with his father.

In his recently published autobiography "Born to Run," Springsteen explains: "My knuckles classically rapped, my tie pulled 'til I chocked ... All business as usual in Catholic school in the fifties. Still, it left a mean taste in my mouth and estranged me from my religion for good."

Further in his autobiography, Springsteen shared he "came to ruefully and bemusedly understand that once you're a Catholic you're always a Catholic."

His relationship with his father combined with depression have left him cracked but not broken. He admitted: "I don't participate in my religion but I know somewhere...deep inside...I'm still on the team."

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