When She Loved Me

Context and use in Toy Story 2[edit]

Serving as a "haunting soundtrack to Jesse's[sic] tale of abandonment",^[19] "When She Loved Me" is Toy Story 2's main song,^[20] and plays over a montage showing of Jessie and her former owner Emily.^[21][22] Heard approximately midway through the film,^[22][23] the song is sung in-character and off-screen by Jessie during a flashback during which she recalls the moment she is abandoned by Emily,^[4] reflecting upon their once-loving relationship and the good times they shared until Jessie is gradually outgrown and ultimately donated to charity in a cardboard box.^{[11][20][23][24]} The montage was animated by Tasha Wedeen.^[25] According to co-director Ash Brannon, the scene is "an example of perfect animation casting".^[26] In addition to the sequel having more female animators than Toy Story, Brannon found it helpful that a woman animated Jessie, elaborating, "Tasha animated ["When She Loved Me"] and I don't think anybody could have done her better."^[26] Specific lighting effects and filters were used throughout the sequence to complement its mood,^[27] including sun-kissed lighting.^[28]


Earlier in the film, Woody is stolen from a yard sale by Al McWhiggin, a toy collector,^[29][30] in order to complete his collection of vintage Woody's Roundup toys.^[29] A Japanese toy museum is willing to purchase Woody and the rest of the retired Woody's Roundup cast for a lucrative sum,^[30] each of whom have become collector's items since the show's cancellation.^[31] Most of the toys long to travel to the museum in order to avoid spending their remaining lives in storage,^[32] but Woody is hesitant, and the museum will only accept the toys as a complete set.^[31] Jessie is particularly adamant that it would be best to relocate to the museum.^[33] While Woody explains that he is eager to return home to his rightful owner Andy, preferring to be loved while risking damage and abandonment as opposed to being immortalized in a museum,^[34] Jessie finally reveals that she herself once had an owner much like Andy by whom she was treasured, before ultimately being discarded.^[35] Before the song begins,^[36] Woody tells Jessie about his relationship with Andy, which prompts her to share her own embittered experience with Emily,^[37] the only person she had ever truly cared about.^[38] Seated on a window sill,^[39] Jessie perfectly interprets Woody's feelings for Andy: "when [Andy] plays with you it's like, even though you're not moving, you feel like you're alive, 'cos that's how he sees you",^[36] Describing Emily as her "whole world",^[37] Jessie proceeds to explain to Woody both the joys and tragedies associated with being loved by a child,^[5][34] having once been Emily's favorite toy before her interests change as she grows older, turning towards music and makeup instead,^[40] and increasingly neglecting Jessie in the process,^[41] including forgetting her underneath her bed.^[42] Emily's cowgirl-themed possessions are gradually replaced with makeup and music albums.^[29] Before the scene ends, it offers Jessie (and audiences) a moment of false hope by showing the doll being rediscovered, retrieved from underneath Emily's bed and held as though she is about to be played with once again,^[43] only to be placed inside a cardboard box and left on the side of a road to be donated to charity.^[40][44] Jessie believes all toys eventually "outlive their usefulness"; to her, the idea of relocating to Japan "means that she will provide pleasure again and have some purpose in life."^[20] Sky TV described the scene as "Jessie's wistful trip down Memory Lane".^[45] The song also develops Jessie and Woody's relationship; Jessie finds the courage to tell Woody her story,^[33] explaining her apprehension towards the idea of having an owner,^[46] while Woody becomes a compassionate listener by learning about how she had become a collectible in the first place.^[33][40] Jessie's sadness is used "as the anchor to keep Woody in place",^[47] making him torn between which decision to make upon listening to Jessie's story.^[48] Later in the film, Jessie must make a choice of her own to either forsake immortality in favor of being loved by a child once again.^[28] BBC Online summarized the song's use in the film as "girl meets toy, girl loves toy, girl grows up, toy is left out for recycling."^[49]


Slant Magazine's Aaron Cutler identified "When She Loved Me" as one of the "few moments of melancholia" amidst an otherwise "sweet and light" film.^[50] Describing the song as "a fundamental Disney moment", Lasseter himself explained, "It's like Walt [Disney] once said, for every laugh there should be a tear and for every tear a laugh."^[51] During this song, the audience learns about the origins of Jessie's "deep abandonment issues".^[52] Paste contributor Tim Grierson expressed that the toy "isn't just singing ... she's expressing a very human fear of abandonment that's backed up by decades of [Randy] Newman's previous scarred protagonists."^[53] On the Track: A Guide to Contemporary Film Scoring author Fred Karlin agreed that the song "gives Jessie's statement not only a specific emotionality, but also a universal one."^[5] Daly described "When She Loved Me" as the "weepiest moment" in the Toy Story trilogy,^[4] while Michael Mallory of the Los Angeles Times believes that both the song "encompasses the film's key message".^[26] By exploring the doll's character,^[54] film critic Roger Ebert wrote that the song proves that Jessie "does get the blues", despite her "spunky and liberated" personality.^[42] Contributors to the book Toy Story: How Pixar Reinvented the Animated Feature found "When She Loved Me" to be the "tragic inverse" of the series' theme song "You've Got a Friend in Me" due to its melancholy tone and outlook.^[36] Set nearly in the center of the original Toy Story trilogy, GamesRadar+ contributor Simon Kinnear identified the scene as "the point where the series truly grows up, shifting from a tale of childhood imagination to a mature reflection on growing up."^[46] The Nashville Scene opined that although "The scene is shot from a toy's point of view ... the primal fear it expresses—of fading from a child's memory as he or she grows older—is only too parental."^[55] Similar, Consequence of Sound contributor Allison Shoemaker wrote "The sequence manages to convey not only the ache of being left behind by someone you love, but the inevitable tragedy of growing up (and getting old). We all leave our childish things behind."^[56]