NEW YORK -- It's a song you may have heard a million times on the radio, a heartfelt ballad about a struggling musician in love with a girl 1,000 miles away.

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The girl in "Hey There Delilah" by the Plain White T's has got to be real, right? She is.

Singer Tom Higgenson said it was five years ago that he met steeplechase athlete and Olympic hopeful Delilah DiCrescenzo. He was struck by both her beauty and her unusual given name, and promised her he'd write a song in her honor.

"I was like, you know what? I will write you a song and it's going to be ... the best song I ever write," Higgenson said. "And it's going to be the one that gets us famous, and you know you'll be my date for the Grammys."

She might have said, "Yeah," and forgotten about the exchange. But Higgenson did write that song, and it became the No. 1 of last summer.

And even though the song featured a totally dreamed up story line, a different story did develop when Higgenson re-contacted DiCrescenzo and gave her a copy of her song.

"I wasn't really expecting anything like, you know, her to run into my arms or anything like that," Higgenson said. "It was just she inspired the song and ... I wanted to give it to her."

And then another of his prophecies came true. The song was nominated for a Grammy -- Song of the Year. So DiCrescenzo agreed to be Higgenson's date for the awards show.

There are no romantic prospects, though, Higgenson told Ann Curry on the "Today" show.

"We never got together, no," he said. "I met her, thought she was kind of pretty, I wrote the song. Nothing ever happened."

DiCrescenzo said she does have a boyfriend, and he's been a "good sport" through the whole experience.

"It is romanticized, but the song means so much to so many people, so I'm happy it's had so much success, and I don't mind playing along with it," she said.