Songfacts®:

• Barbra Streisand sang this love ballad to James Brolin at their wedding in July 1998. The following year, she recorded it for a A Love Like Ours, an album largely inspired by her romance with the actor, but the song was originally written about another newlywed couple: R&B singer Melissa Manchester and musician Kevin De Remer, who got married in 1982.
  
  Manchester teamed up with hitmaker Tom Snow (who co-wrote Manchester's hit "You Should Hear How She Talks About You") after her songwriting brain was triggered by sweet nothings from her new husband. She's quoted by Barbra Archives:
  
  "When we were newly married, Kevin and I were sitting in bed one morning, and he said to me 'Just one lifetime won't be enough time to love you,' and I said, 'Hold that thought - there's a song there somewhere,' and I ran to phone Tom Snow with the great idea."
• Manchester recorded this for her 1985 album, Mathematics, and was reminded of it more than a decade later when Streisand's romance with Brolin was making headlines. She recorded a new demo and sent it to the singer, hoping she'd consider recording it. She did record it, but in typical Streisand fashion, insisted it be altered to her satisfaction.
  
  "She loved the chorus," Manchester explained, "but she couldn't follow the verses, musically or emotionally, so she asked if they could be reworked. Tom Snow and I ended up creating an entirely new song, one that really mirrors Barbra's emotional state now. It is an entirely different song than the one I recorded in 1985."
• Arif Mardin, the album's producer, took inspiration from Streisand's wedding performance of the song, which featured a chamber-music arrangement by Marvin Hamlisch.
  
  "She sent me a cassette of that, and I incorporated a little bit of Marvin's music at the beginning and at the end of the album version of the song," he told Marilyn Beck ahead of the album's release. "You can almost imagine the wedding beginning when you hear it."
• The album was recorded at Sony Studios with a 60-piece orchestra. Mardin explained how Streisand's vocals influenced the musicians: "She sings live, of course. She belongs to the tradition where, for example, if she feels emotional and wants to slow down a beat, the conductor will watch for her cues and slow down the orchestra. It's all organic."