Bruce Springsteen Was ‘Nervous’ He’d Never Be Able to Sing Again

Bruce Springsteen is back on the road after dealing with health issues — peptic ulcer disease specifically — but there was a period where the Boss feared his singing days were over for good.

"You sing with your diaphragm. My diaphragm was hurting so badly that when I went to make the effort to sing, it was killing me, you know?" he recently said on SiriusXM's E Street Radio (via Deadline). "So, I literally couldn't sing at all, you know, and that lasted for two or three months, along with just a myriad of other painful problems."

In the midst of that pain, Springsteen admitted he was concerned his voice would never come back, adding: "I was, during the course of it, before people told me, 'Oh no. It's gonna go away, and you're gonna be OK,' you know, you're thinking like, 'Hey, am I gonna sing again?' and you know, this is one of the things I love to do the best, the most, and right now I can't do it."

Springsteen was forced to postpone a number of 2023 tour dates on account of the health issues.

"You know, I can't do it, and it took a while for the doctors to say, 'Oh no. You're gonna be OK,'" he continued. "At first, nobody was quite saying that, which made me nervous, you know, and at the end of the day, I found some great doctors, and they straightened me out, and I can't do anything but thank them all."

READ MORE: 10 Songs Bruce Springsteen Hasn't Played Yet on His 2023 Tour

Many of those canceled 2023 shows have been rescheduled for this year. On March 19, he and the E Street Band resumed their world tour.

In the same interview with Sirius XM, Springsteen promised that his set lists moving forward will contain more variety.

“I think we're approaching [the 2024 World Tour] like it's a new tour," he said. "There will be some things from last year's tour that will hold over; some of my basic themes of mortality and life. Those things I'm gonna keep set, but I think I'm gonna move around the other parts of the set a lot more. So there'll be a much wider song selection going on."

Springsteen has already begun making good on that promise, playing "Roll of the Dice" in Las Vegas on Friday night for the first time since 2017, plus a cover of Elvis Presley's "Viva Las Vegas" for the first time since 2002.

Watch Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Perform 'Viva Las Vegas'