Though Mandy Moore's record sales were not up in the ranks with Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera, she has proved to be an arduous talent both in singing and in acting, and snagged an MTV Movie Award in June 2002 for her first feature film role in A Walk to Remember during the same year.
The story revolves around two North Carolina teens, Landon Carter and Jamie Sullivan, who are thrown together after Landon gets into trouble and is made to do community service. Basically it embodies the idea of “opposites attract” because Landon was a troublemaker with no future in sight and Jamie who was the kindhearted reverend’s daughter.
The guy she's talking about in the song is the rebel type- an emotionally detached guy, a product of a hard life.
The lines, “I've seen you before, you were always the cold one, but i was never that sure, shows she had an impression that he was a lone wolf or a troublemaker, so she never got to know him, but when she saw him crying by himself, she realized he was harboring painful emotions and memories. The tone, and the next line suggests that he is in love with her, but wouldn't ever tell anyone. "That forever was in your eyes" probably means although he doesn't seem the type, deep inside, he really had dreams and a whole lot of stories to tell. The line "I was changed" just means that it was at that point that she saw him for what he really was, and that her first impression was wrong. Possibly even that she has developed a slight liking to him
For me, the song makes me picture out a view of a sunset with the boy sitting on one of the swings in the playground contemplating about how bad is life is and there is also a girl who was not noticed by the guy that she is there too. Together they share solitude and a starting line of a new kind of friendship- even love.
This song greatly compliments the movie because this was played while Landon was being both sad and happy about his loss- happy because Jamie has changed him in impossible ways and sad because their time was so short. It makes the teary-eyed movie watchers to smile a little after having seen such a heartbreaking story of a true love.
