There’s been a longstanding rumor that Bruce Springsteen wrote a song intended for the Harry Potter movies that was rejected. He recorded it in the summer of 2001, so a few months before Sorcerer’s Stone came out in theaters, and it was called “I’ll Stand By You Always.”

Springsteen confirmed that the rumor was true in an interview with BBC Radio 2 (via EW) today. “They didn’t use it,” he laughed. “It was pretty good. It was a song that I wrote for my eldest son, it was a big ballad that was very uncharacteristic of something I’d sing myself. But it was something that I thought would have fit lovely; at some point I’d like to get it into a children’s movie of some sort because it was a pretty lovely song.”

Here’s the full interview segment:

The Harry Potter movies rarely utilized contemporary music until much later in the series (Deathly Hallows Part 1 featured a Nick Cave song), and never had any sort of non-score theme song to speak of, so it probably makes sense that they didn’t use it. But it must take a lot to reject The Boss! Especially if it was a “pretty lovely song.” 🙁