A listening session with his wife, Patti Scialfa, really helped Bruce Springsteen light his fire…his creative fire, that is.
The rock star is the subject of new documentary, Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, which is now streaming on Hulu and Disney+. Springsteen wrote much of the narration and voiceover for the documentary, which ends with a Jim Morrison quote that poignantly speaks to the film’s meditation on mortality and creativity.
“O’ great creator of being grant us one more hour to perform our art and perfect our lives,” the quote reads. It’s a haunting prayer from Morrison, who died at just 27, and a pertinent one from Springsteen as he refuses to slow down, even as he hits his mid-’70s.
But the story behind how Springsteen found the quote and decided to include it is a sweet glimpse inside his marriage. The musician realized that before he and Scialfa met, they both attended the same Doors concert at Convention Hall in Asbury Park, New Jersey, in 1968.
Disney; Chris Walter/WireImage
“We weren’t together, but we were in the same room,” he explained following the Los Angeles premiere of the documentary. “So we got talking about it one night, and we found you could go online, and you could see the entire setlist from the Asbury Park Show in 1968. So, we got in bed, and we said, ‘Okay, we’re going to recreate the entire show.’ I found live Doors cuts, and we recreated the entire show from 1968 and listened to it before we went to sleep.”
This listening session sent Springsteen down a bit of a rabbit hole. “I went on a bit of a Doors binge, and I started to read several books,” he continued. “And I came across that quote, and it just seemed like the perfect way to sum up what the band is about, what our relationship with our fans means, what we’ve been trying to do, and what our mission statement has been for the past 50 years. It just seemed to sum everything up in those four very, very brief lines.”
The film follows Springsteen and his legendary E Street band, many of whom have toured with him for 40-plus years, on their ongoing tour in support of Springsteen’s 2020 album, Letter to You (the pandemic delayed live touring for a bit). It traces the band from the earliest days of rehearsal and shaping the show through to the tour, both in the United States and in Europe, and the experience they aim to create each night for the fans. Additionally, it delves into the history of the band and their life on the road.
“It’s just a little insight into how the show gets put together, both philosophically and technically and musically,” Springsteen said of the film. “It lets the fans know the band a little bit more.”
Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly’s free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.
Though Springsteen helped shape the film as both its central figure and its writer, longtime collaborator Thom Zimny directed it. “This is really Tom’s film because all I told him to do was bring his camera and come down to the farm,” the rocker added. “The narrative arc of the film is really all Tom’s, and he did a beautiful job.”
But Zimny insists the process is more mysterious than Springsteen lets on. “There was no reflective game plan of, ‘The doc will have this POV, which then reflects the POV of the live show,'” Zimnypreviously previously told Entertainment Weekly. “But I do take my cues from him and how the show emotionally feels. If anything, I’m standing in the shadows a little bit and trying to take up a little bit of the energy that I’m witnessing. This show has moments of humor, reflection, and pure rock & roll. I’ve got to get all that in the doc. I’m not coming up with these ideas on my own. I’m witnessing them unfold.”