Songfacts®:

• "Islands In The Stream" was written by The Bee Gees as an R&B song. On March 10, 2009 when Maurice Gibb appeared on the BBC Breakfast program, he explained that it was written for Marvin Gaye, who turned it down.
  
  In 1983, Kenny Rogers, a huge star in the world of country music, signed a lucrative deal with RCA and chose Barry Gibb of The Bee Gees as his producer - a very odd pairing that worked quite well. Gibb and his team wrote a set of songs for Rogers to record for his debut album on RCA, Eyes That See In The Dark, and decided to give him a try on "Islands In The Stream" as well. According to Rogers, he spent four days trying to record his vocal and was ready to give up on it when Gibb decided it should be a duet, and "what we need is Dolly Parton."
  
  Parton was also signed to RCA and was in the building. Kenny's manager asked her to sing on the track and she did, giving it the spark the song needed. Gibb and the rest of the Bee Gees sang the backing vocals.
• The title came from an Ernest Hemingway story called Islands In The Stream that was published in 1970. It was the first of his books to be published posthumously.
• "Islands in the Stream" was a huge genre-hopping hit. It topped the Hot 100 (two weeks), Country (two weeks), and Adult Contemporary (four weeks) charts. It was the 1985 American Music Awards winner for Favorite Country Single, and 20 years later topped CMT's poll of the best country duets of all time. It was also #1 in Australia for 10 weeks.
• Remarkably, it was 17 years before another country song, Lonestar's "Amazed," reached the summit of the Hot 100. Country music went mainstream in the early '90s, but even "Achy Breaky Heart" only reached #4 on the Hot 100.
• The Bee Gees were focused on songwriting around this time, since their look and sound had fallen out of favor after the demise of disco. The group could write in a variety of styles, which they proved on this song. Members of the group also wrote several songs for their brother, Andy Gibb, as well as the Barbra Streisand hit "Woman In Love" and the Dionne Warwick song "Heartbreaker."
  
  Their extensive songwriting accomplishments earned them induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1994.
• A version of this song was recorded by Ruth Jones and Rob Brydon from the BBC comedy Gavin & Stacey along with Welsh legend Tom Jones and Bee Gee Robin Gibb for the 2009 Comic Relief charity appeal. When Comic Relief asked permission to release a cover of the song, Gibb told the Radio Times that he had no qualms. He said: "We have one of the most successful song catalogues in the world. When you've got a catalogue that big, you have to make sure that people don't abuse it by changing lyrics or using songs for derogatory reasons. Most people respect that and stay true to the original as best they can. This is for a great cause and they've done a great job."
  
  This Comic Relief version topped the UK chart, making the 68-years-and-9-months-old Tom Jones the oldest living singer to have a #1 single in the UK. The previous record holder was Louis Armstrong, who was a mere 66 when "What A Wonderful World" reached the peak position in 1968. This also meant that a song written by the Bee Gees has been #1 in the '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s and '00s, something no other song-writing partnership has achieved.
  
  Tom Jones record was broken in 2020 when the 99-years-and-11-months-old Captain Tom Moore was one of the artists on a charity cover of "You'll Never Walk Alone."
• The song is about a couple who won't let anyone come between them - they're like islands in a stream. It gets a little saucy with these lines:
  
  We ride it together, ah-ah
  Makin' love with each other, ah-ah
  
  References to "making love" were very common and perfectly acceptable in pop music at the time, especially when delivered by family-friendly singers like Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers.
• OK, here's the joke associated with this song: What do you call Dolly Parton lying down in a bathtub?
• Kenny Rogers told the television host Piers Morgan this story of the time he impersonated himself:
  
  "I was in Vegas, and as a joke, I went into one of those things where they have the impersonators and I didn't tell anybody it was me," he recalled. "So I go up on the stage and I'm singing with this girl who looks like Dolly, sang great like Dolly."
  
  "We did 'Islands in the Stream' and when it was over, this man comes up to me and says: 'I'll tell you one thing, you're a hell of a lot better than the real guy.'"
• Former Fugee Pras Michel's 1998 hit "Ghetto Superstar (That Is What You Are)" is a hip-hop reworking of this song.
• Part of what made the song so successful was the chemistry between Parton and Rogers, who looked like they could be a real couple. They often performed it on TV, and when they did, it was very flirtatious: they would stare into each other's eyes, touch hands, and smile at each other. They did share an affection and looked like they could be a real couple, but it was an act - they never had a romantic relationship. (Rogers and Parton were both talented actors; he starred in various TV movies based on his song "The Gambler," and she was in the hit movie 9 to 5.
  
  Parton had been married since 1966 and Rogers was on his fourth (of five) marriages. "I couldn't catch him between wives!" Parton joked when asked why they never got together as a couple.
• "Islands In The Stream" was the first collaboration between Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers, who formed a close friendship. In 1985 they recorded another duet called "Real Love" and toured together, which was turned into an HBO special. In 2013 they did another duet inspired by their friendship called "You Can't Make Old Friends."
  
  At the 2017 "All In For The Gambler" tribute concert in Nashville honoring the retiring Kenny Rogers, the duo closed out the evening with a performance of this song. In a People magazine interview preceding the event, Rogers said the collaboration was the beginning of his longtime friendship with Parton, and he gave her credit for bringing life to the song. "Once she came in and started singing, the song was never the same," he said. "It took on a personality of its own."
• "Islands In The Stream" is a karaoke favorite - it's fun, singable, and gets two singers into the action. In the "E-Mail Surveillance" episode of The Office from season 2 in 2005, Michael and Jim sing this it together at Jim's party.
• Sean Astin and Winona Ryder dance to this song on the Netflix series Stranger Things, in the season 2 episode "Trick or Treat, Freak." It was also used on season 3 of Schitt's Creek, where the end of the episode "Rooms By The Hour," Moira distractingly sings along with Jocelyn and Twyla's rendition of the duet.
• Will Ferrell, who has an affinity for '70s and '80s hits that some might consider schmaltzy, sings "Islands In The Stream" with Reese Witherspoon in the end credits to their 2025 movie You're Cordially Invited. Their version was released as a single and used in a video to promote the film.
• The Bee Gees, who wrote this song, sometimes performed it in concert. You can hear their version on their 1998 live album One Night Only.
• Dolly Parton is Kenny Rogers' most famous duet partner, but she wasn't the first. He sang with Dottie West on the 1978 #1 Country hit "Every Time Two Fools Collide," with Kim Carnes in 1980 on "Don't Fall in Love with a Dreamer," and with Sheena Easton earlier in 1983 on "We've Got Tonight."
  
  In 1984 he released an entire album of duets (mostly with Dottie West) called Duets.