that birthday meme, only not mine

[jlh]

So that meme is going around again where you post the #1 pop song on the day you were born. Mine is "Honky Tonk Women" by the Rolling Stones, in both the US and the UK. I don't have a lot to say about it; it's not my favorite Stones song and the lyrics are sort of annoying, so I switched with evil_erato who talks about it here.

Instead, I'm going to talk about HER song because I think it's awesome: "Evergreen (Love Theme to A Star Is Born)" which was #1 on March 13, 1976. Reasons it is awesome:

1. It's a love theme to a ridiculous 70s remake of a 1930s movie that was also remade in the 50s, where a young woman is discovered by a male star, whom she marries, and then goes on to eclipse his fame—her star is going up while his is going down. He tries to be a good sport about it, but starts drinking and being sort of an asshole so she's all, "whatever" and then he dies. At the end of the movie, she makes her first public appearance since his death and introduces herself with her married name. Judy Garland plays the woman in the '54 remake, which is a classic.
   
2. But what makes the '76 remake even more ridiculous than the earlier movies is that Barbra Streisand plays the ingenue and Kris Kristofferson the star. Babs is in full 1970s beige lipstick and jewfro style; for that final scene she's in a white three-piece suit singing at a rock concert where the audience put up their lighters in honor of the dead Kristofferson. And Kris killed himself by driving his Camaro into the dessert while listening to an 8-track demo of Babs's new record—he flips the car. Seriously, is anything more 70s than that?
   
3. Maybe the cover of the tie-in album. The hair! The nudity! The sepia-toned black and white!
   
   
4. Well, maybe the lyrics to the song, which start: "Love, soft as an easy chair."
   
5. Or how about: Babs actually wrote the music and arranged it, and those sweet, sweet lyrics were written by Paul Williams, that staple of 70s television:
   
   No one could rock a pair of tinted aviators like Paul Williams. And before you dismiss him as a goofy 70s actor (he was on the Gong Show! the Muppet Show! Hawaii 5-0!) he also wrote "Rainy Days and Mondays" and "The Rainbow Connection" plus music for Bugsy Malone.
   
6. I will mention that it won the Oscar for Best Original Song and the Grammy for Song of the Year, but only as information because awards don't matter.
   
7. Also I sang it at a wedding. So there's that.

So here's the moment in the movie where they sing Evergreen. Dig her peasant blouse: