Bruce Springsteen explains why the one time he sang karaoke was ‘disappointing’

The singer said he tried karaoke once at a bar in London

The Boss isn’t a fan of karaoke.

The 76-year-old singer was asked if he had ever done karaoke, where people sing along with pre-recorded instrumental music, during Friday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live. He explained that he had only tried karaoke once in his life when he was at a bar in London.

“They were doing karaoke and I said, ‘I'm going to get up and do some f***ing karaoke, you know,’” Springsteen said. “And I decided I was going to do the [The] Temptations 'Ain't Too Proud To Be.’

“So I assume I'm going to get up there. I'm going to sing a few notes and this place is going to go wild,” he continued.

However, when he got up on the stage in the bar to sing, he didn’t get the reaction he was expecting.

Bruce Springsteen says he was expecting crowd to ‘go wild’ when he did karaoke at bar (Getty Images for FLC)

“I started singing, and they thought I was just another a*****e who got up on stage and was trying to do karaoke,” the “Dancing in the Dark” singer said. “So it was really disappointing. I've never done it again.”

Springsteen appeared on the late-night show on Friday alongside Jeremy Allen White, who’s playing the singer in the new film, Deliver Me from Nowhere. The film explores the period during which Springsteen created his 1982 album, Nebraska.

Springsteen praised the plot of the movie last month, since Deliver Me from Nowhere is not actually a biopic in the ordinary sense.

“I think we had a very specific idea of what we were gonna attempt to do, and, for lack of a better word, it was an anti-biopic,” he said in a Q&A session. “It just takes a couple years out of my life.”

He said the film looks at a time when he went through “some difficult places” when he was in his early thirties.

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The film’s director, Scott Cooper, also stated that he focused on emulating specific moments that made the record impactful, rather than Springsteen’s career as a whole.

“I was interested in a man who’s sitting alone in a bedroom with a four-track recorder facing this unresolved trauma and mental health illness asking the questions that we all often ask when we’re lost and we’re facing the sort of issues that really no one else can understand,” he said. “I knew at that point this was a film I had to make.”

Variety reports that Springsteen praised Cooper for the scenes that show the musician with his father, played in the film by Stephen Graham.

Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere will be released in cinemas on 24 October.