Lyric discussion by Hurk24 

This is actually a true story. As he is from my home town, there was a story about this with the girl this was written about. Check it out: pjstar.com/stories/122207/PHI_BF98B7KI.054.php

The PJStar.com link is no longer valid. However, the page was saved by archive.org: web.archive.org/web/20080104090524/http://www.pjstar.com/stories/122207/PHI_BF98B7KI.054.php

It says that the girlfriend is Jill Anderson, from Woodruff High School. They met in the grocery store on Christmas Eve in 1975.

Fogelberg took some poetic license: The song says her eyes are "...still as blue", although they're actually green. He admitted later that he actually knew her eyes were green, but "green" doesn't rhyme with "gratitude".

wow. just wow. so romantic, and yet so so sad ;(

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