IF anyone was still under the impression that wealth could buy you perpetual happiness, no less a figure than Bruce Springsteen proved them wrong this week.

The Boss told of the mental illness he had witnessed in his family when younger and of his own experience of depression.

He has repeatedly sought therapy and been prescribed antidepressants, he revealed in Vanity Fair.

In his forthcoming autobiography, he tells how his wife Patti “will observe a freight train bearing down, loaded with nitroglycerin and running quickly out of track”. In response, “she gets me to the doctors and says, ‘This man needs a pill.’ ”

Springsteen, now 66, writes: “I was crushed between 60 and 62, good for a year and out again from 63 to 64. Not a good record.”

This is a man who has lived the life of a rock star for more than 40 years. A man whose net worth, depending on which website you look at, is estimated somewhere between 200million and 350million US dollars.

Perhaps more importantly, he’s a man who regularly stands before tens of thousands of people whose fervour can make them seem more like religious devotees than an audience. People around the world desperately want to tell him what his songs have meant for them – how his music got them together with their future life partner, or sustained them through difficult times.

So I think we can dispense with any notion that money, popularity or approval will inoculate you against human unhappiness.

Those of us who love Springsteen’s music sense that, despite having been a wealthy man for a long time, he understands ordinary human struggles. He writes of decent people, putting in the hours, holding together families, going wrong while trying to do right. We feel he gets us.

Now, it seems he may understand human frailty even better than we thought.

Springsteen’s openness about mental illness ought to earn everyone’s respect. And if anyone’s cynical enough to point out that he has an autobiography to promote, they ought to consider the book would have sold in large quantities anyway.

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day, an event that will bring together 70 organisations in England alone in an attempt to reduce deaths by self-harm. Since men account for three quarters of suicides, there will be a particular emphasis on reaching men with the message that “It’s okay to talk”.

Mental health problems among men are more widespread than that. According to the Men’s Health Forum, 12.5 per cent of men in the UK are suffering from one of the common mental health disorders. Men are almost three times more likely than women to become alcohol-dependent and more likely to use illegal drugs.

Common mental disorders – depression, anxiety, phobia, obsessive compulsive disorder and panic disorder – are diagnosed more often in women than men (affecting one in five women and one in eight men). But we don’t know how many men have conditions that are going undiagnosed. And men are much less likely to seek therapy.

As the World Suicide Prevention Day message acknowledges, men often feel it’s not okay to talk – that there will be stigmatised for revealing their own weakness.

The author and speaker Brene Brown, who specialises in vulnerability and shame, recalls a man saying to her at a book signing: “My wife and three daughters … would rather see me die on top of my white horse than have to watch me fall off.”

Bruce Springsteen’s ability to mix toughness and tenderness, rock-solid dependability and wild romanticism, has made him a model of healthy masculinity for many people. When he opens up about mental health, it sends a message as important as any contained in his music, and might just make some men feel better about asking for help.

At least for today, everyone should be a Springsteen fan.