Bruce Springsteen’s Unused ‘Harry Potter’ Song Leaks

Last year, Bruce Springsteen confirmed that he once wrote and recorded a song for a Harry Potter film, only for it to go unused. On Friday, a Springsteen bootleg collector released to a torrent site 13 never-before-heard tracks from The Boss, including the Potter song, titled “I’ll Stand by You Always.” The mellow song features Springsteen singing in a slightly higher range over an atmospheric synth reminiscent of his other songs written for film—namely “Streets of Philadelphia” and “Secret Garden.” When he first revealed that the song exists, Springsteen told BBC Radio that it was a “big ballad” written for his eldest son, Evan (b. 1990), and that it is “very uncharacteristic of something I’d sing myself.”