Songfacts®:

• Barbra Streisand and Don Johnson trade verses about how love transformed their former bleak existence on this ballad from Streisand's Till I Loved You album. The song actually brought the singer and the Miami Vice star together. They were both signed to Columbia Records but never met until the label suggested a duet after Johnson landed a Top 10 hit with "Heartbeat" in 1986. By the time they hit the recording studio, they were an item - but a short-lived one. They split in September 1988, a month before the album was released.
• Written by American composer/lyricist Maury Yeston, this was intended for the stage musical Goya, starring Spanish opera star Placido Domingo in the role of Spanish painter Francisco de Goya. Domingo wasn't able to commit to a full-fledged musical, so the project turned into an album, Goya: A Life in Song. The 1989 release features a few versions of the ballad with Dionne Warwick, Jennifer Rush, and Gloria Estefan serving as his duet partners. The Spanish-language version with Estefan, titled "Hasta amarte," was released as a single and went to #8 on the Hot Latin Songs chart.
• Johnson was already a huge star, but he was nervous about collaborating with someone of Streisand's caliber. He shared his memories of the recording session in a 2006 TV interview with Jonathan Ross: "There was studio glass between us so that she could watch me sing - because it was a duet. It was a little nerve wracking, as I recall. She's a perfectionist... She's impeccable about everything, impeccable about every note. I want to be that way - it's just that I don't have the equipment that she has to do it."
• Streisand thought Johnson's vocal style and acting background contributed to the success of the duet. "It was a lot of fun singing with Don because he's very musical and has a unique sounding voice," she noted in the 1996 biography Streisand: Her Life by James Spada. "When he sings, he's an actor - and a really good one - so he knows about being in the moment, which is always new and different and the way I like to work."
• Till I Loved You was devised as a concept album that followed a romance from beginning to end. Like her 1984 pop album, Emotion, it employed various songwriters and producers. This track was produced by Phil Ramone, who was known for his work with Billy Joel throughout the '70s and '80s.
• This peaked at #3 on the Adult Contemporary chart, giving Streisand the 32nd Top 10 AC hit of her career.
• Before this peaked at #25 in 1988, Streisand hadn't had a Top 30 hit on the Hot 100 since "Coming In And Out Of Your Life" reached #11 seven years earlier. Another lengthy absence from the chart followed until "I Finally Found Someone," her duet with Bryan Adams from the movie The Mirror Has Two Faces, soared to #8 in 1996.
• Streisand also included this on her 2002 compilation album Duets.
• Johnson also added backing vocals to the album's third single, "What Were We Thinking Of."