About The Song
Streisand and Neil Diamond’s duet on “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” debuted at No. 48 and went all the way to No. 1 on the Billboard pop charts by November 1978.
The Program Director at WAKY Radio, Gary Guthrie, was responsible for inspiring the duet. As he told Billboard Magazine in 2009, the story goes like this:
The short story is this: Becky, my wife, and I were going through a very amiable divorce. The previous Fall, we had heard Neil’s version at a friend’s house and I noticed how it made her cry. Fast forward to Spring 1978 and Barbra’s new album (another of Becky’s favorites) came out and, dayumm, there it was again.
There was just something that clicked in my head and I decided to do it for her. Since we weren’t really sleeping in the same bed at that time, my nights were open and I’d hang out at the station and play with the mix, then take it in to whoever (was on the air and) have them play it while I went out to my car and listened to how it sounded.
There was a lot of back and forth with that late at night before I ever unleashed it on the daytime public. Once I did, however, all hell broke loose. Requests, record store calls, you name it.
I had two friends who had an in at Columbia — one who had been their Nashville VP and one who was their local guy in Miami — and I asked both to help me get this up the ladder. They did their job well.
Word spread quickly, and my 15 minutes of fame was in full force. People magazine, the LA Times, Good Morning America, Merv Griffin, Casey Kasem, even the Aussie version of Johnny Carson came calling for the story.
Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond performed the song live on the Grammy Awards February 27, 1980.
Video
Lyrics
You don’t bring me flowers
You don’t sing me love songs
You hardly talk to me anymore
When I come through the door at the end of the day
I remember when
You couldn’t wait to love me
Used to hate to leave me
Now after lovin’ me late at night
When it’s good for you, babe
And you’re feeling alright
Well, you just roll over and turn out the light
And you don’t bring me flowers anymore
It used to be so natural (used to be)
Talk about forever
But used-to-bes don’t count anymore
They just lay on the floor ’til we sweep them away
And baby, I remember
All the things you taught me
I learned how to laugh
And I learned how to cry
Well, I learned how to love
And I learned how to lie
So you’d think I could learn how to tell you goodbye
(So you’d think I could learn how to tell you goodbye)
You don’t bring me flowers anymore
Well, you’d think I could learn how to tell you goodbye
Well, you don’t say you need me
And you don’t sing me love songs
You don’t bring me flowers anymore