"If You Ever Leave Me" is a vocal duet between American singers

Barbra Streisand Barbara Joan "Barbra" Streisand (; born April 24, 1942) is an American singer, actress and director. With a career spanning over six decades, she has achieved success in multiple fields of entertainment, and is among the few performers List ...

and

Vince Gill Vincent Grant Gill (born April 12, 1957) is an American country music singer, songwriter and musician. He has achieved commercial success and fame both as frontman of the country rock band Pure Prairie League in the 1970s and as a solo artist b ...

. The song was written by

Richard Marx Richard Noel Marx (born September 16, 1963) is an American adult contemporary music, adult contemporary and pop rock singer-songwriter. He has sold over 30 million albums worldwide. Marx's Richard Marx (album), self-titled debut album went tri ...

, and produced by Marx and David Foster. It first appeared as a song on Streisand's twenty-eighth studio album, ''

A Love Like Ours ''A Love Like Ours'' is the twenty-eighth studio album by American singer Barbra Streisand. It was released in North America on September 21, 1999, and Europe on September 20, 1999. It is her 23rd Top 10 album in the US. This was Streisand's fi ...

'' (1999), and was released as an international

CD single A CD single (sometimes abbreviated to CDS) is a music single in the form of a compact disc. The standard in the Red Book for the term ''CD single'' is an 8 cm (3-inch) CD (or Mini CD). It now refers to any single recorded onto a CD of any si ...

that included three additional tracks, two of which were recorded during the ''A Love Like Ours'' sessions but were not included on the album. The song later was included on Streisand's ''

Duets A duet is a musical composition or piece for two performers. Duets or The Duets may also refer to: Films and television * ''Duets'' (film), a 2000 film, starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Paul Giamatti and Huey Lewis * "Duets" (''Glee''), a 2010 episod ...

'' album, released in 2002.

Critical reception

The song was well received among music critics.

J.D. Considine J. D. Considine (born 1957) is a music critic who has been writing about music professionally since 1977. Background J. D. Considine's work has been published in numerous newspapers and music magazines, and he has contributed to several books. ...

from ''

The Baltimore Sun ''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries. Founded in 1837, it is currently owned by Tr ...

'' described it as "pop-oriented fare", that "offers an impressive emotional depth." Chuck Taylor from ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

'' declared it as a "luscious

power ballad A sentimental ballad is an emotional style of music that often deals with romantic and intimate relationships, and to a lesser extent, loneliness, death, war, drug abuse, politics and religion, usually in a poignant but solemn manner.J. M. C ...

", noting that "it's hard to imagine a better combination of mature voices than that on this tantalizing song about needing to spend every minute with the one you love". He also felt that "thanks to silken production from Marx and David Foster, this one ranks up there with classics like '

Comin' In And Out Of Your Life "Comin' In and Out of Your Life" is a 1981 single released by Barbra Streisand on her album ''Memories''. Production Milwaukeen Richard Parker worked with Bobby Whiteside to create jingles for a while, and then decided to use their musical hook sk ...

' and ' Woman In Love'". An editor from ''

Drogheda Independent The ''Drogheda Independent'' is a newspaper that serves the Drogheda area, including Drogheda, Mid-Louth and East Meath. The newspaper covers many thing's from local and regional news and advertisements including its own database of records. ...

'' commented, "The it Vince Gill meets the technical precision of Barbra Streisand. Magic. Two singers from very different genres come together for the duet of the year." The editor concluded, that "this is a beautiful love song that gets better the more you play it." '' People Magazine'' stated in their review of ''

'', that songs like "If You Ever Leave Me" "stand out simply because they don't drip with sentimentality and because Streisand allows a bit of

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

to creep into her vocals."

Chart performance

"If You Ever Leave Me" was released to country radio and peaked at number 62 on the US ''Billboard''

Hot Country Singles & Tracks Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data from Nielsen BDS along with digital sal ...

chart. On December 5, 1999, its accompanying

music video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a m ...

became the third most played video on CMT. It also peaked at number 26 in the UK and number 92 in Australia.

Production

* Producers and arrangers: David Foster and

* Orchestra arranger and conductor:

William Ross (composer) William Ross (born July 20, 1948) is an American composer, orchestrator, arranger, conductor and music director. Ross is the recipient of three Primetime Emmy Awards (in 2007 and 2009), one Daytime Emmy Award (in 1991), and has been nominated ...

* Engineer: Felipe Elgueta and

Humberto Gatica Humberto Gatica is a Chilean-born American recording engineer, mixing engineer and record producer, best known for his work with Celine Dion, Chicago, Michael Jackson, Barbra Streisand, Andrea Bocelli, Josh Groban and Michael Bublé. Gatica's inter ...

* Mixer:

Mick Guzauski Nathan "Mick" Guzauski is an American multi-platinum mixing engineer and sound engineer. His work spans a wide range of styles, including jazz, R&B, Latin, rock, pop, easy listening, funk and hip hop. He won a 2002 Latin Grammy for Thalía's ...

* Mastering:

Vlado Meller Vlado Meller is a Slovak audio mastering engineer, currently with Vlado Meller Mastering in Charleston, South Carolina. Meller works across many genres of music, with credits on rock, hip-hop, pop, jazz, metal, dance, opera, Broadway, and classica ...

at Sony Music Studios, Santa Monica, CA * Executive Producers:

and Jay Landers

Track listing

Charts

References

Barbra Streisand songs Vince Gill songs 1999 songs 1990s ballads {{1990s-song-stub