Great scene, and pretty much exactly the same from script to screen. However, here's some trivia about the song playing on the boom box. According to a recent
interview, Cameron Crowe wrote the scene with Billy Idol's 'To Be A Lover' in mind. Here's what he had to say:
'To Be a Lover' was a song I liked for [exactly] one day -- the day I wrote that scene. It never worked for the scene the day before or after. John Cusack is playing Fishbone's 'Bonin' in the Boneyard' in the actual scene, but when we put the movie together, it didn't work at all. He seemed like a crazed Fishbone fan who just happened to be outside her window.
But with 'In Your Eyes,' it was like his life was leading to that moment. We were lucky Peter Gabriel let us use it. It's a mystical kind of marriage, when a song works with film. I live for those kinds of marriages. It's always fun to find that connection as a director.
However, a commenter had this to say about it:
I think Cameron Crowe may have gotten this wrong. On the "Say Anything" dvd commentary, Cusack says he was really playing Fishbone's "Turn the Other Way". So, right band, wrong song.
In any case, in the script excerpt it says 'In Your Eyes' and the scene plays just like written, so it makes me wonder if the script excerpt is from a transcript or a draft made after the movie was finished.
If I remember correctly, something I heard years ago, there was also a dispute with Peter Gabriel about the usage of the song. He asked for an enormous amount of money to license the song (enormous back then, I think it was $175000 or something like that) but Crowe insisted on having the song in there and convinced the studio to pay up.
Good move. It's a classic.