Long before Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand‘s duet “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” dominated the Billboard charts, it existed in two completely different worlds.
Diamond had recorded his version as a quiet, somber track for his 1977 album I’m Glad You’re Here with Me Tonight. Streisand delivered her own aching rendition a year later for her Songbird LP.
However, neither music icon had any intention of turning the song into a duet. But when a creative radio DJ decided to play music matchmaker behind Columbia Records’ back, he ignited a pop-culture frenzy that the label couldn’t ignore.
Originally, Diamond wrote the song with Marilyn and Alan Bergman as a TV theme for a Norman Lear project, All That Glitters, reported American Songwriter. However, when the proposed series took a different turn, Diamond recorded the song himself and included it on the ’77 LP. Streisand also loved the song and recorded it, in the same key as Diamond, for her own album.
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Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty ImagesThis element proved crucial to what would happen next. A radio DJ and program director named Gary Guthrie from WAKY Radio in Louisville, Kentucky, heard the similarities in the two versions and spliced them together, according to Stereogum.
Following overwhelming listener interest, other radio stations did the same thing. This response led Columbia Records to get two of their biggest artists in the studio to record an official version of “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers.” It hit the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 in December 1978.
Diamond discussed the song with Mojo Magazine in 2008, as reprinted by Songfacts, “I suggested trying to write a torch song, which is typically a woman singing on-stage about how her man done her wrong, but having sung by a man. Therefore, the title ‘You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,’ which is not something that men really think about but a woman might.”
At the 1980 Grammy Awards, Streisand and Diamond performed the song to close out the ceremony. They received a standing ovation as neither was scheduled to appear.
Their on-screen chemistry felt real, and Streisand received cheers at the song’s end when she tenderly touched her friend’s face. “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” was nominated for Song Of The Year, but lost to Billy Joel’s “Just the Way You Are.”
Ironically, both Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond were classmates at Brooklyn, New York’s Erasmus High School, where they sang in the choir together. Their shared history and convincing vocal chemistry cemented this song in the history books as one of the most beloved love songs of a generation.
Related: 1973 Epic Barbra Streisand Masterpiece That Took 33 Takes to Finish, Remains One of The Best Film Songs Ever
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