“Well, I’m upset today, because my roses are not in bloom because of this doom-gloom weather...and I have a friend coming in the next couple of days. She’s going to be very disappointed.”
So begins my phone call with Barbra Streisand one Tuesday afternoon, a few weeks before her new album, The Secret of Life: Partners, Volume Two, is due out from Columbia. It marks Streisand’s 37th record in just north of 60 years—not counting the compilations (such as 2012’s Release Me and 2021’s Release Me 2) or the several recorded live (including 2022’s revelatory Live at the Bon Soir)—the newest pearl in a long and gleaming strand of them. She’s very proud of the project and excited for people to hear it—if only she could get her rosebed to cooperate in the meantime.
A follow-up to 2014’s Partners, which featured duets with Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel, John Legend, John Mayer, and more, The Secret of Life assembles another astonishing array of musical talent. The lineup includes stars from Mariah Carey, Ariana Grande, Hozier, Laufey, and Sam Smith to Bob Dylan, Josh Groban, Paul McCartney, Tim McGraw, Seal, Sting, and James Taylor, their sundry genres and sensibilities proving nothing so much as the timelessness and versatility of Streisand’s own voice. (Of course, we had a good sense of that already; surely, she is the only living performer who has previously duetted with Judy Garland, Donna Summer, Barry Gibb, Johnny Mathis, Céline Dion, Frank Sinatra, and Antonio Banderas.)
Here, our greatest star talks making up for lost time—and why it took so many years for her to return to the recording studio.
Vogue: I have to say that my favorite track on the new album is probably “The Very Thought of You,” with Bob Dylan. How did that come to be?
Barbra Streisand: Well, Bob had written me years ago, I think it was in the 1980s, to sing with him, and I thought, How could I sing with him? I didn’t understand. He’s known for his particular kind of voice, kind of half talking and half singing, and I thought, That sounds nuts. Even though our appearances happened at the same time—we were both 19 years old, walking around Greenwich Village, singing in little clubs, and yet we never met.
But I remembered that he sent me flowers—he did bring me flowers!—and a note to sing with him, and I thought, How do I sing with him? It was just so funny to me. I can’t really remember what album I had made at that time—I have to look that up. So I turned that invitation down. But now he’s become such a legend, and he still sings and plays the guitar and travels and whatever. And so I thought, Well, why not him? Let’s ask him. I doubt he’ll do it. But he did.
It’s true that you wouldn’t think your voices would sound so good together, but they really do. It really works.
Well, because he allowed me to come in when he was singing, which is lovely. I mean, he didn’t allow, really, any of our producers to talk to him. He allowed me to kind of direct him, which I didn’t think he would. I started off by talking to him [about the past], and here we meet for the first time, and I think the song would be so perfect for both of us. He was just amazing to work with. People were kind of scared of him, but no, he was just professional and easy and lovely. And we made up for lost time.
In your memoir, My Name Is Barbra, you recall how you were starting your career at about the same time as the Beatles, so it’s amazing to also have that sort of full-circle moment with Paul McCartney on this album.
I know. Isn’t that funny? But I’d met Paul McCartney before. As a matter of fact, I [first] met him when he still was with his wife, who died, unfortunately. She was so sweet. He invited me to his house when I was in England, I think when I was in Funny Girl. Or maybe it was before that, when I first came, because I remember sitting in his kitchen and meeting his wife. He was always very sweet and generous in that way. So it was great to actually sing with him now.
I was also quite struck by “I Love Us,” with Tim McGraw. You’ve often dipped into a country-western sound, but it sounds especially good on your voice now.
That’s one of my favorites. I think he has a great voice. I love the concept of the song, for people who are happily together—whether they’re married or not—the concept of I love us, what we are together. It’s such a warm, loving lyric. It’s wonderful. I hope the people love it too.
Did you ever consider recording a proper country album, the way that you’ve done other genre or themed albums?
A country album? Hmm. I don’t know if I’m good enough for that.
I’m sure people would disagree! But may I ask about one duet that is not on this album—and is about 50 years old? Your version of “(They Long to Be) Close to You” on Burt Bacharach’s TV special in 1971. You were such a wonderful interpreter of Bacharach’s work. What was that relationship like?
Well, he was very attractive, too, at the time. [Laughs.] You know what I mean? And I kind of worked with the lyric, “close to you,” and we were close. So it wasn’t hard to sing the song with him. He wrote such a beautiful melody. You can read into it what you want, you know?
[At this point in the call, Streisand’s reception gets wonky and she has trouble hearing me. Eventually, however, her longtime A&R man, Jay Landers, who is also an executive producer on The Secret of Life, confirms at my prompting that a third Release Me album is “certainly something we’ll do in the somewhat near future.” In the interest of time, I keep my two requests on that front—Streisand’s 1988 recording of “Make Our Garden Grow” and the alternate theme for 1996’s The Mirror Has Two Faces, “It Doesn’t Get Better Than This”—to myself. Shortly after that, we get back on track.]
It’s been almost seven years since Walls, your last album of new music. Why so long?
Because I wanna live life! You know what I mean? I wanna live life, I want time with my family and not have to go to a record session. I have grandchildren. But I was ready. I was ready to sing again and to really look at new material with very exciting performers and people I admire.
Fair enough!
I’m sorry to have to go now. My husband has to go to his eye doctor, and I said I’d go with him instead of being in the studio. Usually, he comes to the studio when I record because he likes to hear me sing, which I don’t do in my house.
What a treat for him. Have a great rest of your afternoon, and thank you.
Thank you, honey.
This conversation has been edited and condensed.