1976 · Behind the Songs
The A Star Is Born theme she wrote herself.
The recording in context
“Evergreen (Love Theme from A Star Is Born)” is the rare Streisand hit she co-wrote — music by Streisand herself, lyrics by Paul Williams — for the 1976 film she starred in opposite Kris Kristofferson. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and the Grammy for Song of the Year, and topped the charts in early 1977. For a singer known as an interpreter, it was a quiet triumph of authorship.
Listen closely
The song begins almost as a lullaby — a simple, rocking melody that feels like it has always existed. That simplicity was the point: Streisand wanted something a working musician in the film might actually have written. Listen to how the verse sits low and unhurried, then opens into the chorus like sunlight through a window. The famous line about love being “soft as an easy chair” is sung with a warmth that makes the domestic image feel profound.
What rewards attention is the performance’s restraint. This is a singer who could overwhelm any song choosing instead to cradle this one. The long final notes are held with a steadiness that suggests devotion as a daily practice — not a blaze, but a hearth.
“Evergreen” has outlived its film to become a wedding standard — proof that the simplest songs, honestly sung, travel farthest.