How Bruce Springsteen’s Documentary Pays Tribute to His Mom Adele, Who Died in January

‘Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band’ goes behind the scenes of the band’s first tour in six years

Bruce Springsteen is remembering his mom.

On Oct. 25, Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band premiered on Hulu and Disney+. The documentary dives into the preparations the singer, 75, and his famous backing band took before embarking on their most recent tour, which began in 2023. It continued into 2024, and the band also has European dates booked for 2025. The new tour was their first in six years, which Springsteen calls “a lot longer break than I planned” in the documentary.

Though most of the film, directed by longtime Springsteen collaborator Thom Zimny, is focused on the band and how the concerts come together, the final moments of the feature focus on something more personal: Springsteen’s mom Adele.

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Bruce Springsteen (right) and his mom Adele on stage together in 2013.Geoffrey Robinson/Shutterstock

After the final moments of the doc — which include a live performance of the song “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out”  — a video plays of Springsteen and his mom Adele dancing together on a porch to “In the Mood” by Glenn Miller. At the end of the clip, she cheers and gives him a hug and kiss on the cheek, while Springsteen says, “Beautiful, beautiful.” Then, a card on screen says, “Dedicated to Adele Springsteen,” and notes her birth year, 1926, and the year of her death, 2024.

Adele died on Jan. 31 of this year. At the time, Springsteen posted on Instagram the same video that features in the documentary. He also included lyrics to the song “The Wish.” The record was originally released in 1988 as part of Springsteen’s album Tracks, a four-disc box set with 66 songs, many of them never-before-released.

“The Wish” was also part of the “Thunder Road” singer’s Springsteen on Broadway show, a concert residency he performed from 2017 to 2018. He returned for more performances in 2021, and the concert was released as both an album and as a Netflix special.

Bruce Springsteen performing in 2024.Ricardo Rubio/Europa Press via Getty

On stage, Springsteen called his mom “bright” and “happy.” He continued, “She’d merrily make conversation with a broom handle, she believed that there was good faith, good heart, good hope in all citizens. She gave the world a lot more credit perhaps than it deserves, but that was her way.”

“My mom was truthfulness, consistency, good humor, professionalism, grace, kindness, optimism, civility, fairness, pride in yourself, responsibility, love, faith in your family, commitment, joy in your work, and a never-say-die thirst for living — for living. For living and for life. And most importantly, for dancing,” Springsteen said. He recounted how his mom and his aunts especially loved the big bands of the ‘40s.

“My mom is seven years into Alzheimer’s. And she’s 93,” he said at the time. “But dancing, and the desire and need to dance is something that, it hasn’t left her. Remains an essential primal part of who she is, it’s beyond language, it’s more powerful than memory, and when she comes in the door, we make sure there’s music on. She wants to dance, ya know. These things were the embodiment of my mother, they were her heart, she carried on and she carries on as if they never, never deserted her.”

The song “The Wish” tells the story of the first guitar his mother bought him. During the chorus, he sings, “It ain’t no phone call on Sunday, flowers or a Mother’s Day card / It ain’t no house on a hill with a garden and a nice little yard / I got my hot rod down on Bond Street, I’m older but you’ll know me in a glance /  We’ll find us a little rock ‘n’ roll bar and we’ll go out and dance.”

Adele and Springsteen’s father Douglas Frederick “Dutch” Springsteen married in 1948 and were together until his death in 1998. The couple also shared Bruce’s two sisters, Virginia and Pam.