Bruce Springsteen’s previously unreleased song “I’ll Stand by You” is one of several Springsteen tracks to be included on the soundtrack to Blinded by the Light, a new film inspired by his music. The musician originally penned the song for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, but it never made the final cut. It’s only loosely inspired by J.K. Rowling’s story, with lines like “Together we’ll chase those thieves that won’t leave you alone/ Out from the under the bed, out from over our home.”
In 2016, Springsteen told the BBC of the track, which leaked in 2017, “It’s pretty good. At some point I’d like to get it into a children’s movie of some sort.” This seems to be the next best thing as the soundtrack to Blinded by the Light features several Springsteen rarities, including the first ever performance of “The River,” from the No Nukes ’79 concert at Madison Square Garden and an acoustic rendition of “The Promised Land” that Springsteen performed in 2014 at Washington, D.C.’s National Mall. The soundtrack also showcases a few Springsteen classics like “Badlands,” “Hungry Heart” and “Thunder Road.”
Blinded by the Light, out August 16th, was directed by Gurinder Chadha and based on the book Greetings from Bury Park: Race, Religion and Rock N’ Roll by Sarfraz Manzoor. The film details Manzoor’s experience growing up in 1987 Britain as a Pakistani teenager obsessed with the Boss.