Evergreen

Barbra Streisand / Paul Williams

Sometimes a Song is a long time coming. Today’s choice is such a song in a couple of ways. First, I haven’t yet talked about Barbara Streisand, the top-selling singer in the US, surpassed only by Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra — with 65.5 million album sales. And that’s saying a lot, given that she began to hit the airwaves at about the same time as The Beatles did, when the star of Rock ’N’ Roll was rising and that of the crooners was setting … or at least was moving to the wings of popular music. Second, I haven’t talked a song which was the first ever Academy Award Best Song winner written by a woman, but not just by a woman — by the woman who recorded it and starred in the film whose theme it was. Here’s a composition which made musical and film history, sung by one of the very best popular singers of the 20th century. How could it have taken me so long to get around to this song?

Well, when Tony mentioned to me last Sunday that he had “evergreen” in mind for our Word of the Week, I had to face this particular music. “Evergreen,” the theme from the 1976 remake of A Star is Born, didn’t just win an Oscar for Best Song, it also won a Golden Globe award and two Grammy’s that year (one for Best Popular Performance, Female and another for Song of the Year). All this, and Barbra Streisand was by no means a songwriter. But she was a connoisseur of 20th century popular song and in particular of Broadway tunes. The kind of musical understanding necessary to compose our song this week did not come about through formal training, for Streisand had very little of that, but through constant and thoroughgoing ear training. How often have I mentioned the music “in the air” in the mid-century? It also helped that Barbra’s family were musically gifted. Her mother was by all accounts a fine soprano who could have become a professional singer; her maternal grandfather was a cantor. How many of our great popular composers of the early-to-mid 20th century were descended from cantors? My opinion of Barbra Streisand’s musical gift is that if she could compose such a song as “Evergreen” with no particular training — and clearly, she had learned the “trade” of emoting a song! — she could have written others. But she had a different career in her sights.

In fact, Barbra Streisand seems to have been born with the voice we all recognize as hers. Yet her great goal in life, from her early teens on, was to become not a singer, but an actress. A friendly fellow who knew how well she could sing had to tell her to list “singing” as one of her talents whenever she sought auditions for acting roles. Can we imagine, now, Barbra Streisand not singing? As an actress who had to be dubbed in films? The simple answer to that question is “no.” And that is because singing was her primary gift, and acting became a way of advancing the singing career she was destined to have. My favorite roles of hers are as the star of “Funny Girl” (Broadway and film version of a 1964 play about singer/comedienne, Fanny Brice) and “Hello, Dolly” (a film version of the 1964 Broadway play, which starred Carol Channing). And why is that? Because this is the sort of acting which Streisand had always aspired to — Broadway style — and to which she was most definitely suited. Her translation to the silver screen in these roles was inevitable, but it was the Broadway musical which led her to her longed-for rise as an actress, and not the other way around.

I could say so much more about Barbra Streisand’s long and much-lauded musical career, but for the 10th day of Christmas I will give you an absolutely beautiful melody, “Evergreen,” sung by the composer herself, Barbra Streisand, with lyrics written to order by Paul Williams for the second remake (in 1976) of the 1937 David O. Selznick musical film. I hope you enjoy it.