Bruce Springsteen: rock icon, working-class hero, and apparently, wannabe Harry Potter songwriter. In an interview with BBC Radio 2’s Simon Mayo, Springsteen confirmed the longtime rumor that he had written a song for Harry Potter, one that (obviously) never made it into any of the movies. Springsteen explained that the song, titled “I’ll Stand by You Always,” was originally written for his eldest son and that it wasn’t necessarily what you might expect from the Boss. “It was a big ballad that was very uncharacteristic of something I’d sing myself.”

Springsteen didn’t specify which Harry Potter movie he wanted “I’ll Stand by You Always” to wind up in, but he filed a copyright for the song in 2001, right around the time of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, so it might well have been the original. Why didn’t the ballad make the cut? Springsteen says “you’ll have to ask them,” but we can probably guess why director Chris Columbus went with “Hedwig’s Theme” instead, since Springsteen’s style seems like an extremely weird fit for Harry Potter.

Despite the rejection, Springsteen mentioned that he still thought the ballad was “pretty good” and that he’d like to get it into another children’s movie. Maybe one set, oh, I dunno, in 1920s New York City? One that’s a little bit grittier than the early Potter movies were? One with four sequels already in the works? Just a suggestion.