About The Song
“Evergreen (Love Theme from A Star Is Born)” is the signature ballad from the 1976 remake of A Star Is Born, performed on the soundtrack by Barbra Streisand and issued as a single in December 1976. Written by Streisand (music) with lyrics by Paul Williams, it framed the film’s romance with an intimate melody and plain-spoken vow, quickly becoming the project’s calling card as the soundtrack and movie rose up the charts in late 1976 and early 1977.
In the film, Streisand’s Esther Hoffman sings the theme opposite Kris Kristofferson’s troubled rock star, a relationship the song renders as tender rather than showy. The arrangement (by Ian Freebairn-Smith) keeps the focus on voice and song: a gentle orchestral bed, restrained rhythm, and a vocal that never overreaches. That understatement fit the broader soundtrack, produced by Streisand and Phil Ramone and captured across concert stages and studios during 1976 to preserve a “performed-live” immediacy.
Composition came together quickly once Williams joined the project. He supplied the lyric to Streisand’s melody and suggested flipping the opening couplet—“Love, soft as an easy chair… Love, fresh as the morning air”—so it would “sing better,” sharpening the song’s conversational flow. The result is a theme that reads like something whispered across a kitchen table, which is precisely why it lands so hard both onscreen and on record.
Released as a Columbia single with “I Believe in Love” on the B-side, “Evergreen” moved steadily at radio and became Streisand’s second U.S. Hot 100 No. 1, spending three weeks at the summit in March 1977 and topping Adult Contemporary for six. It also reached No. 1 in Canada and entered Top-5 or Top-10 tiers in several markets abroad, ultimately finishing as the No. 4 song of 1977 on Billboard’s year-end survey—evidence of broad crossover beyond the film audience.
Awards season confirmed its stature. At the 49th Academy Awards, “Evergreen” won Best Original Song, making Streisand the first woman to receive an Oscar as a composer; she and Williams also took the Golden Globe for Best Original Song. At the 1978 GRAMMYs the record won Song of the Year (tied with “You Light Up My Life”) and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, with Freebairn-Smith recognized for Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist—an unusually sweeping haul for a film theme.
Within the A Star Is Born arc, the song became the film’s emotional hinge and the soundtrack’s commercial driver—one that Streisand continued to revisit. She later restored an intimate guitar performance of “Evergreen” for a special cut of the film, underscoring how naturally the melody works in smaller settings. Decades on, the theme has anchored tributes and reunions (including a celebrated 2019 Hyde Park appearance with Kristofferson), renewing its association with the pair’s screen chemistry.
Heard now, “Evergreen” endures because it is both specific and universal: a clear promise set to a melody you can hum after one pass. It caught the cultural moment in 1977, but its craft—unfussy writing, humane singing, and an arrangement that leaves room for breath—keeps it fresh. As a love theme and a pop single, it remains one of Streisand’s defining recordings and the brightest thread connecting the 1976 film to audiences far beyond the theater.
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Lyrics
Love soft as an easy chair
Love fresh as the morning air
One love that is shared by two
I have found with you
Like a rose under the april snow
I was always certain love would grow
Love ageless and evergreen
Seldom seen by two
You and I will make each night a first
Every day a beginning
Spirits rise and their dance is unrehearsed
They warm and excite us, cause we have the brightest love
Two lives that shine as one
Morning glory and midnight sun
Time weve learned to sail above
Time wont change the meaning of one love
Ageless and ever evergreen