Barbra Streisand finds 'The Secret of Life' on her new duets album with
Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney
[June 24, 2025]
By GLENN GAMBOA
Barbra Streisand was worried.
She had just spent six days a week for six weeks recording the audiobook
version of her 2023 memoir “My Name is Barbra” — which became more than
48 hours of discussing her storied, EGOT-winning career and the
unexpected life that came with it. But now, it was time to record a new
album with a stunning lineup of duet partners that ranged from current
hitmakers Hozier and Sam Smith to legends Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney and
James Taylor. And when producers played the songs for her, she couldn’t
sing along. Her mighty voice would just squeak.
“My voice was shot,” Streisand, 83, told The Associated Press, calling
from her home in Malibu, California. “I mean, I literally prayed to God
in front of that microphone, ‘Let my voice be there for me.’ And I don’t
know how, but it was there.”
Fans will be able to hear that for themselves on Friday, when her album
“The Secret of Life: Partners, Volume 2” arrives in stores and on
streaming services. And despite her misgivings, Streisand shows she can
still deliver the performances she wants, while also coaxing them out of
others.
Bob Dylan: ‘Would you sing with me?’
Her duet with Dylan had been decades in the making. In 1970, Dylan sent
Streisand a bouquet of flowers and a note — written in what she believes
was crayon — asking, “Would you sing with me?”
But they did not connect until decades later, when their styles had
converged a bit. When Streisand started work on her new album, she sent
Dylan a copy of her memoir with an inscription referring to their time
separately performing in Greenwich Village as teenagers and hoping it
was time to finally sing together.
Choosing to rework the Ray Noble standard “The Very Thought of You” —
popularized by everyone from Nat King Cole and Tony Bennett to Billie
Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald — turned out to be a surprise. It's not one
of her personal favorites, though it is her longtime manager Marty
Erlichman’s favorite song.
Dylan, one of the most revered songwriters in music history, only wanted
to sing a standard, not one of his own classics. “Isn’t that great?”
Streisand said. “I would’ve sung anything with him.”
She also agreed to his request to keep everyone else out of the studio
when they recorded — including Streisand’s husband, James Brolin, who
often goes to her sessions.
“I had heard he wrote ‘Lay, Lady, Lay’ for me,” she said. “So I thought,
‘Let’s make this lush, romantic track.’”
Though Dylan has a reputation for not taking much direction from
producers, Streisand said he was very receptive to her suggestions.
“He was totally open to ‘Why don’t you maybe try this?’ or ‘Phrase it
this way’ or ‘Try something else’ — just like I do as a director in
movies and he was my actor that day,” she said. “To capture his
originality and his voice and his phrasing, it was just an exciting
experience.”
McCartney worries about his ‘Valentine’
Her experience with McCartney was more daunting. There was a full film
crew on hand, led by Oscar-winning director Frank Marshall, to capture
the recording of two of the world's most successful artists for an
upcoming documentary on Streisand's life. Streisand said that added to
the challenges of the session.
“He was kind of shy about it and I understand him,” she said about
recording “My Valentine” with McCartney. “I walked into a room of 25
people (to sing) and I don’t like that.”
McCartney told his website he was “terrified” during the three-hour
session.
“I thought, ‘Well, this will be easy because it’s my song, it’s “My
Valentine.” What can go wrong?’” he said. “But what I’d forgotten was
that they’d arranged it so that it had to go in Barbra’s key and then in
my key. So, to get from Barbra’s key into mine was kind of difficult.
... It wasn’t easy at all!”
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Singer Barbra Streisand performs in New York, Oct. 11, 2012. (Photo
by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
 They quickly worked it out. “It
turned out great,” said Streisand, who released the song in May as
one of the album’s preview singles.
It’s another single, though, that is resonating even more. “Letter
to My 13-Year-Old Self,” Streisand’s duet with Icelandic
singer-songwriter Laufey, hit No. 1 on the iTunes chart earlier this
month, topping Sabrina Carpenter’s “Manchild” and Mariah Carey’s
“Type Dangerous” on release day.
Streisand related to the song because it reminded her of a
middle-school report she wrote called “My Thirteen Years,” which
meant so much to her that she still has it. In neat, cursive
writing, she recalled what her life was like, her love of
Shakespearean sonnets and the death of her father, Emanuel. “I was
too young to realize what had happened,” she writes in the report.
Streisand connects to her ‘13-Year-Old Self’
It was at age 13 that Streisand also made her first record, when her
mother brought her to Nola Studios in Manhattan to record “You’ll
Never Know” and “Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart.”
“When I was 13, that’s a very distinguished year in my life,”
Streisand said. “So I hear this song … and it really hit me.”
She worked with Laufey to turn the original, which Laufey sang solo,
into a duet. They settled on Laufey singing as the 13-year-old and
Streisand as her mother. Streisand said she was “absolutely
thrilled” with how it turned out and how fans have responded to it.
Sure, duet success is nothing new to Streisand, who has topped the
charts with Neil Diamond on “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” and Donna
Summer on “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough),” and a string of albums
including “Duets,” “Partners” and “Encore: Movie Partners Sing
Broadway.”
But “The Secret of Life: Partners, Volume 2” is different. Streisand
said her worries about the world and President Donald Trump’s second
administration may have subconsciously contributed to her selection
of some of the album’s more serious tracks — like Sting’s “Fragile”
and her reworking of “Love Will Survive” from last year’s “The
Tattooist of Auschwitz” series into a duet with Seal.
“I’d like to be happier,” Streisand said. “But every time I turn on
the television — and I’m a glutton for punishment, obviously — I’m
fascinated and horrified at the same time, you know?”
At a recent dinner with U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., Streisand
said he described the current state of Washington as “created chaos,
corruption and cruelty.”
Streisand added, “I thought, ‘That kind of sums him (Trump) up.’”
However, Streisand, who has retired from touring, said she does plan
to work on achieving the goal she set out in her memoir: To enjoy
life more. “The Secret of Life” — named from the James Taylor
classic, as well as a children’s book she reads her grandchildren —
has sparked thoughts about what enriches her life.
“The secret of life is spending time with people you love,” she
said, adding she plans to release a string of photos of her and her
“secrets,” including her husband, her son Jason Gould, and other
friends, family and, of course, dogs.
Streisand is in her “stop and smell the roses” era.
“I’m getting older by the day, by the minute, and you have to take a
look at your life from that point of view again, you know?”
Streisand said. “I look in the mirror and go, ‘How much time do I
have left?’ … I’ve had several projects I’ve never fulfilled, but I
have such fulfillment now with people that I love.”
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