Rock legend Bruce Springsteen has revealed that his clean-cut persona was curated in response to his childhood, which felt "unsafe". 

He told Kirsti Young on BBC Radio 4's 'Desert Island Discs': "What I was interested in doing was creating some order and a safe environment for myself because my childhood felt very unsafe."

The Boss went onto talk about his relationship with his father, adding: "I constantly go back and I put my father's clothes on and I walk out on stage and I present some version of him and myself to my audience. Why am I doing that?"

"I am trying to find the piece of it which would lead to a transcendence over the circumstances that I grew up in. My dad had a sort of gruff exterior but inside he could be quite soft and sensitive. The qualities he had inside were the things I wore on the outside. They were just difficult for him to deal with."

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Watch an interview with Springsteen here: