Songfacts®:

• For Twilight fan Christina Perri, landing a track on the soundtrack for Breaking Dawn was a dream come true. She told MTV News how she penned the song after attending an early screening of the movie. Said Perri: "I tried not to get hyped out, because it's one of my favorite movies, one of my favorite books, one of my favorite soundtracks, and that could potentially freak out the little songwriter in me.
  
  So I tried to put that aside and take it one step at a time, went to see the movie and cried like a baby, because it's so good, and I felt so lucky to be there. And then went home and wrote a love song to Edward and Bella... and to have it be chosen, I'm unbelievably honored."
• Perri wrote the song based on the emotions that she felt reading about the star-crossed love affair between Edward and Bella throughout Stephenie Meyer's series. "When we went to watch the screening, they told us to see where there was temporary music added and just jump into those scenes a little harder," she explained to MTV News. "But I'm fortunately a fan of the movie and the characters, and I feel like, by reading these books, I can step into that feeling that Edward and Bella have for each other. So [songwriter] David Hodges and I sat down, and it just came out in one afternoon. I feel like it was all meant to happen; I feel like it was all waiting inside me, waiting to come out."
• The lines, "I have loved you for a thousand years, I'll love you for a thousand more," are appropriate for vampires like Edward and Bella because, they're like, immortal, but humans also took to this song, using it in their weddings as an expression of everlasting love.
• Perri recalled to Billboard magazine: "Atlantic Records (was) doing the writing for Breaking Dawn. They asked me to come in and screen the movie and then write something. They were going to give me a shot because they knew what a big fan I was. So, I saw the movie in this little screening room with all these super-Hollywood-y dudes on their Blackberries not watching... and I'm in the front row crying the whole time. I went straight home and wrote 'A Thousand Years.'"
• "A Thousand Years" was Perri's third single, following her hit debut, "Jar of Hearts," and its follow-up, "Arms." She was in her mid-20s when she had this run of hits. After a few years of touring, she backed away from the industry and started a family, getting married in 2017 and having her first child the following year.
• The song reached a new peak position of #11 in the UK in September 2013, after contestant Nicholas McDonald performed it on the British version of X Factor.
• "A Thousand Years" returned to the UK Top 75 in the spring of 2018 after it was used in a carpool karaoke-style clip in support of World Down Syndrome Day. The video features 50 mums and their children singing along to Perri's hit.
• Back in 2011, David Hodges and Christina Perri set out with a very specific mission: write a song for a wedding scene in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1. After attending an early screening, they sat down to craft something suitably romantic, and, as it turned out, something that would long outlive its original brief.
  
  Hodges felt instinctively that the song should be in 6/8 time, which he described as having a "matrimonial" feel. "I already had this melody that we were kind of playing around with. But we probably spent three hours trying to figure out what's the poetic seat of how to build this love story?" Hodges told The Tennessean. "I even have a work tape of the day that we wrote that song, where one of us, as we're singing through these melodies, one of us goes 'And for a thousand years, oh, a thousand years, that's kind of cool, right?'"
  
  The other wasn't especially convinced, and they moved on, only to circle back about 10 minutes later and realize they'd nearly let the hook slip away. Listening back later, Hodges admitted the near-miss still gives him a slight sense of panic, which is understandable when you consider how central that line became.
• Although the song was written with a vampire wedding in mind, its appeal turned out to be far broader. Hodges noted that while many songs gain power from specific, detailed experiences, "A Thousand Years" works because its lyrics are open enough to fit a wide range of situations. Listeners have applied it to everything from long-awaited relationships to the arrival of a child, and even spiritual themes. Lines like "I've died every day waiting for you" take on different meanings depending on who's listening.
• There are two official versions of the song tied to the Twilight films. The original appears in Breaking Dawn – Part 1 during Bella's walk down the aisle. For The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2, Perri re-recorded the track as "A Thousand Years, Pt. 2," again produced by Hodges, this time featuring vocals from Steve Kazee. This version plays in the film's closing scene and over the end credits.