Download The Song Evergreen
Kelley Deppert
"Evergreen" (also called "Love Theme from A Star Is Born") is the theme song from the 1976 film A Star Is Born. It was composed and performed by American singer, songwriter, actress and director Barbra Streisand with lyrics by Paul Williams,[2] and arranged by Ian Freebairn-Smith.[3] The song was released on the soundtrack album to A Star Is Born.
The song's opening couplet, "Love, soft as an easy chair; love, fresh as the morning air", almost did not appear that way. Williams wrote the "morning air" line first, but told Streisand to "flip those two first lines, because it sings better".[4]
In the US, the single became Streisand's second number 1 single and spent three weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 and six weeks atop the easy listening chart. This was Streisand's second number-one song on the Hot 100 (following "The Way We Were" in 1974), and her third on the adult contemporary chart ("The Way We Were" and 1964's "People").[6] In its year-end chart for 1977, Billboard ranked the platinum-certified single, which sold more than 2 million copies, the fourth-biggest single of the year. In the UK Singles Chart, the song peaked at #3 in 1977.[2]
At the 49th Academy Awards the song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and Barbra Streisand became the only woman in history to win the Academy Award for Best Actress and the Academy Award for Best Original Song. At the 34th Golden Globe Awards the song won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song.At the 20th Annual Grammy Awards the song was nominated in three categories, winning in two for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female and Song of the Year tying with "You Light Up My Life". The song was also nominated for Record of the Year.
Streisand also recorded versions of the song in Spanish ("Tema de Amor de Nace Una Estrella"), French ( "De Reve en Reverie") with lyrics by Eddy Marnay, and Italian ("Sempreverde") with lyrics by Luigi Albertelli. The Spanish version was released as a track on the 1996 CD single, "I Finally Found Someone", a Streisand duet with Bryan Adams, and on the import CD version of the A Star is Born remastered soundtrack. (The French and Italian versions have yet to appear on a CD release.)
DJs don't pick the songs at the vast majority of stations. Maybe they do at a freeform college station, but that's not the radio industry, that's community radio. The Program Director and Music Director craft the playlist, clocks, rotation, etc. The DJ is just there to add a personal flavor (in fact most of the time it's pre-tracked and the DJ lives in a totally different market). There's a lot more I could say about how that's done, but that would take an entire book.
Like I said, the worst thing that can happen to a radio station is the listener changes the dial. So you gotta be damn sure the song you're playing isn't going to cause the listener to go to their next preset.
OES is different for every station, but it's way higher than you might think. It's not uncommon to be around 70, 80 or 90 spins. Even at a heavy rotation, that might be two or 3 weeks for a middle-of-the-road AC station playing their current songs between 30-50 times a week.
Remember the rule of the dial? If you play a song that turns out to be a dud, you're going to loose listeners to another station. If you're playing a song you KNOW does well with your audience, you know they're less likely to flip to another station. It's way smarter to wait to get some data on how your target audience likes the song (more on that later).
At the same time, people aren't thinking about the song you're NOT playing. They're only thinking about the song you're currently playing. If they really want to hear a specific song or artist, they're gonna pull up Spotify anyway.
Every radio station will know exactly how well a song tests with their audience. It gets assigned a number out of 5 based on listener surveys. Songs that test well get played more, songs that test averagely get played less, and songs that test badly get dropped.
Here's the one problem with testing: Remember the OES metric? Well you gotta play a song constantly for WEEKS before people recognize it. And even then the opinions on the song at that point are not reliable. At my station, we played a song for 6-8 weeks before we even bothered to test it. Only at that point was there enough familiarity for people to give a reliable, consistent response.
This is why programmers will wait until there are numbers from nationwide testing. It may not be your station/market, but you'll at least know if it's a bad song or not. Let the other stations be your guinea pig before you commit to it. Remember, playing a bad song will hurt you more than not playing it.
RASCOE: This song that we're listening to is called "Evergreen." Now, I have to say I really like this song because I love a love song where like, someone just gets, like, deep down into their emotions.
APOLLO: I've always loved rapping. Since my first project, I've been rapping. And I kind of knew when I went to go working for real (ph) that I was like, I want to rap. Like, I want to do it more. And then I got the cause. Like, oh, Pharrell's down to work. Let's fly to Miami this weekend. And I was like, OK, cool. So, you know, we went, and we didn't know each other, though. So he made a beat. He was like, you like it? I was like, yeah, I like it. Then he's all right, I'll be right back. So there's another session in the house. I'm like, all right, I got to like - I got to make this song. And like 30 minutes later, he comes back up, and I, like, finished the whole thing. He just comes in. He's like, can I hear it? I was like, yeah. So I play it, and he ended up, like, really, really loving it. It wasn't "Tamagotchi." It was another song. And instantly, like, energy changed, attitude - like, everything. Like - was like, OK, like, there's chemistry now.
RASCOE: I mean, so like, that was the hip-hop side, but, like, you also are paying homage to your Mexican roots. Like, there's a much more traditional song on the album, a corrido, called "En El Olvido."
APOLLO: Oh, man. I mean, I'm just the biggest Prince fan. Like, yeah, there is a huge, huge, huge influence, like, major. But, I mean, is it pressure? No. I just have fun with it. I mean, like, I loved singing in falsetto more than my regular voice when I first started. So I heard Prince, and he's doing all these songs in, like, entire falsetto. I'm like, oh, this is me. Like, this is what I would do. This is how I would do it. You know what I mean? So yeah, like his first album, "For You" - damn, what's the one that - I use to cover it all the time.
State Bird
Willow Goldfinch
The goldfinch is a delicate little bird with a yellow body and black wings, and although it eventually became the official state bird, many other birds were considered for the title. In 1928, legislators let school children select the state bird and the meadowlark won hands-down. It was a nice choice but seven other states already had chosen the same bird. Another vote was taken in 1931 by the Washington Federation of Women's Clubs. Many birds were nominated, but the goldfinch won handily over the tanager, song sparrow, junco and pileated woodpecker. Now there were two state birds and the Legislature decided to leave the final choice to school children. In 1951, children voted for the goldfinch and the Legislature made it unanimous.
State Song
"Washington, My Home"
The state song, "Washington, My Home," was written by Helen Davis, arranged by Stuart Churchill, and became the official state song in 1959. But, like the goldfinch, it had some stiff competition from another popular song.
"The Evergreen State"
On November 11, 1889, Washington became the 42nd state to enter the Union. It is the only state in the Union that is named for a president. Washington was nicknamed "The Evergreen State" by C.T. Conover, pioneer Seattle realtor and historian, for its abundant evergreen forests. The nickname has never been officially adopted.
I would argue that some of the greatest songs ever written have come from a wide variety of albums. Even mediocre or bad albums can produce a gem of a song. Sometimes, one single track can define an entire album for decades.
The Christmas colossus has reached No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart the past four years in a row -- measuring the most popular songs each week by airplay, sales and streaming, not just the holiday-themed -- and it's reasonable to assume 2023 will be no different. One expert predicts it will soon exceed $100 million in earnings. Even its ringtone has sold millions.
"That song is just embedded in history now," says David Foster, the 16-time Grammy-winning composer and producer. "It's embedded in Christmas. When you think of Christmas right now, you think of that song."
The song's co-authors, Carey and Walter Afanasieff, are in a mystifying feud. The authors of a different song with the same title have sued seeking $20 million in damages. While Carey calls herself the Queen of Christmas, her bid to trademark that title failed.
Every year on Nov. 1, the song's hibernation ends when Carey posts on social media that "it's time" to play it again. This year's message depicted her being freed from a block of ice to make the declaration.
In both music and lyrics, the song was perfectly engineered for success, says Joe Bennett, musicologist and professor at the Berklee College of Music. And it came from an artist who was at the top of her game at the time.
"All I Want for Christmas Is You" works as a love and holiday song. Carey sets it up: She doesn't care about all the holiday trappings, she has one thing -- one person -- on her mind. She sprinkles in specific holiday references, from Santa Claus to mistletoe.
Billboard has produced lists of top seasonal hits since 2010, and "All I Want for Christmas Is You" has been No. 1 for 57 of the 62 weeks it has run, said Gary Trust, chart director. Will Page, Spotify's former chief economist and author of the book "Pivot," estimates the song will exceed $100 million in earnings this holiday season.
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