Evergreen by Barbra Streisand

Album: A Star Is Born (1976)

Charted: 3 1

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Songfacts®:

This song about new love was the theme to the 1976 remake of A Star Is Born. The film, which starred Streisand, was very popular and this song won the Academy Award for Best Song. >>>
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Mike - Santa Barbara, CA
Paul Williams, who had written hits for the Carpenters and Three Dog Night, wrote this with Streisand. The songs for A Star Is Born had to be written before filming began, since they were performed on camera. When Williams signed on to the project, Streisand had the music and one verse for the song "Everything." Over the next seven weeks, they wrote all the songs for the movie.
Paul Williams told Songfacts about his collaboration with Streisand on this song: "She sat down and played on a guitar, the melody for 'Evergreen' that she'd written. It was just such a beautiful melody. I said, 'There's your love song. There's the big love song.' I asked her for the melody. She put it on tape for me, and I took it home. I actually wrote that as the last thing, which I think bothered her. But all the Kris Kristofferson stuff was the first thing up on the shoot schedule. So I wrote the songs for Kris first.

You know, Barbra recorded two or three of my songs before we did A Star Is Born. People would always ask, 'Were you nervous about writing the Streisand music?' Of course, she's an amazing talent. But to sit down and write songs and to play songs for Kris... I mean, this is the man who wrote 'Sunday Morning Coming Down,' 'Me And Bobby McGee.' It was wonderful. Kris was great about the songs. But the very last thing that I wrote was 'Evergreen.' I gave that to Barbra, and then hit the road and didn't look back."
Paul Williams said in his Songfacts interview: "I actually wrote those first two lines in the opposite order. I wrote 'Love, fresh as the morning air, love soft as an easy chair.' I called Barbra as I was getting on a plane to go on tour with Olivia Newton-John. We were doing a 6-week tour, and Barbra was in Arizona getting ready to start filming A Star Is Born. I called her and said, 'You know what, flip those two first lines, because it sings better.' 'Love, soft as an easy chair, love, fresh as the morning air.' 'Morning' sang better at that point in the song. And I remember saying to Barbra, 'They'll probably laugh us out of the theaters for starting a love song with a line about a chair, but I think it works better that way.' And I think it was the biggest-selling soundtrack album ever at that time, and of course the song won the triple crown: the Oscar, the Grammy, and the Golden Globe."
Along with Kenny Ascher, Williams also wrote the score for the film, which was nominated for an Oscar. Over the next few years, Williams worked with Jim Henson, appearing as a guest star on the first season of The Muppet Show and writing the music for Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas and The Muppet Movie.

Comments: 8

Tom from Los Angeles, CaJust a few notable corrections to some comments. ‘Star’ was killed by the critics; but was not a box office flop at 63 million in ticket sales. It’s often referred to as the #2 ‘movie' on many websites due to the fact the actual #2 was a documentary and not a ‘dramatic' film’ per se (https://bit.ly/3T1cYOQ); This factual info is out there on many websites (if you look).

1 Rocky Nov 21, 1976 United Artists Drama $117,235,147 55,039,975
2 To Fly! Jan 1, 1976 IMAX Films Documentary $86,600,000 40,657,276
3 A Star is Born Dec 17, 1976 Warner Bros. Drama $63,129,898 29,638,449, but was not a commercial flop. It earned
Elli Mac from Wheeling, WvThe soundtrack from “A Star Is Born” was #1 for six weeks; it sold more than any other movie soundtrack up to that point and eventually sold ten million copies worldwide.
Elli Mac from Wheeling, Wv“A Star is Born” was the #2 movie of 1976, after “Rocky”.
Ian Spencer from Solihull, UkThe thing that always bugged me about this successful song is that the verse and arrangement is so familiar, so familiar that in fact it has the rhythm, melody and arrangement of For All We Know by the Carpenters, so it probably is the most awarded rip off - and search the Internet and nobody mentions the likeness of the two songs.
Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn December 5th 1976, "Evergreen" by Barbra Streisand entered Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart at position #72; and twelve weeks later on February 27th, 1977 it would peak at #1 {for 3 weeks} and it spent almost a half-year on the Top 100 {25 weeks}...
And on January 9th, 1977 it also reached #1 {for 6 weeks} on Billboard's Adult Contemporary Tracks chart {also peaked at #1 on the Canadian Pop and Contemporary chart}...
On March 28th, 1977 the song won the Academy Award for 'Best Original Song' from the movie 'A Star Is Born' {another #1 record was also a nominee; Bill Conti's "Gonna Fly Now" from 'Rocky'}...
The 2nd & 3rd week that "Evergreen" was at #1; it prevented "Fly Like An Eagle" by the Steve Miller Band from reaching the top spot, for it peaked at #2 for both those weeks.
Wayne from Nederland, TxActually, A Star is Born was the # 4 film in 1976 not a commercial flop.
Larry from New York City, NyElvis Presley was first contacted, by Barbra herself, for the role of her lover in ?A Star Is Born?. Imagine Barbra singing to Elvis!!! There where to many contract demands from Elvis?s manager. So Elvis was dropped and the role went to Kris Kristofferson . Kris won a Golden Globe for it and made him a leading man in Hollywood. I still dream of Barbra and Elvis singing, kissing and making love in my mind. Wow, what did we miss????? Great Movie and ?Kris and Barbra? where great together.
David from Youngstown, OhNot a Streisand fan by any stretch of the imagination, although growing up as a Jew in NYC, it was a challenge to ignore her music. This is especially true when your mother and her friends love Babs. The movie was a big deal when it was released - a remake of a remake, 1st done in 1937 and then in 1954 with Judy Garland and James Mason. But it was a critical and commercial flop.

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