"You Don't Bring Me Flowers" is a song that hit the top of
the Billboard Hot 100 charts in 1978. It is a song about two
lovers who have drifted apart while they "go through the
motions" and heartache of life together.
The song was written by Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman for
the ill-fated TV show
All That Glitters. The song was intended to be a theme
song, but Norman Lear changed the concept of the show so that
the song no longer fit. Eventually, Neil Diamond and several
collaborators came upon the song (then only 45 seconds long)
and expanded it with instrumental sections. The Bergmans
expanded the song to full length with an additional verse, and
the composition took form.
In 1977, Diamond released the album
I'm Glad You're Here With Me Tonight, which included the
track. "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" which was also covered by
Barbra Streisand on her album
Songbirdand sung in the same key (C major). This led
Gary Guthrie, then Program Director at WAKY (an AM radio
station in Louisville, Kentucky) to combine the two in a
"virtual" duet.
The popularity of the virtual duet motivated Diamond and
Streisand to record the real thing, and it became a very large
hit. The song reached number one on the Hot 100 chart for two
non-consecutive weeks in December 1978; this was the third #1
hit for both singers. Their performance of the song during the
1980 Grammy Awards show has been featured on live music
performance highlight reels ever since.
Diamond and Streisand had planned to star in a motion
picture based on the song, but such plans were cancelled when
Diamond starred in a remake of
The Jazz Singer, which was less successful than hoped at
the box office.
Concurrent with the success of Diamond and Streisand's
version of the song, country singers Jim Ed Brown and Helen
Cornelius released a country version of the song which reached
#10 on the Hot Country Singles chart in early 1979.
In 1980, a cover version of the song was recorded by
expatriate American singer Dean Reed and Hungarian vocalist
Kati Kovács. [1]
In 1996, the song was also sung by rappers Ice T and an
embarrassed Tupac Shakur during a
Saturday Night Liveshow. It was also infamously covered
in spoken-word form by pianist Liberace.