NN.BREAKING: Diane Keaton’s Secret Dream Finally Comes True — Her First and Final Song Leaves the World in Tears.
Throughout a career spanning nearly six decades, Diane Keaton won a Tony Award for her role in the 1969 Broadway production of Play It Again, Sam, then an Academy Award for Best Actress, and a BAFTA for her role in the 1977 Woody Allen classic Annie Hall, along with Golden Globes and Emmy Awards. Despite all her achievements in film, Keaton always dreamed of recording her own music since her 20s.
Keaton had previously performed and recorded songs on stage and in film, including the original cast recording of Hair on Broadway in 1968, along with the soundtrack to Annie Hall, Cole Porter’s “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To” in Radio Day (1987), along with more for And So It Goes (2014), and Book Club: The Next Chapter (2023). In 2022, Keaton was also featured as a vocalist on the singer-songwriter Ashe’s single, “Love Is Letting Go.”
“I thought I was being catfished,” said Ashe on getting the call from Keaton. “I thought, ‘No way I’m getting on the phone with Diane Keaton.’ She’s just the most precious, wonderful human in the world.”
“The First Christmas’
Though Keaton tried to pursue a music career at different points in her life, it never happened until nearly a year before she died in 2025. In November of 2024, Keaton finally fulfilled her dream of recording her own song, a holiday song, “The First Christmas,” which was co-written by Swedish producer Jonas Myrin and her friend, legendary songwriter Carol Bayer Sager.
“I got lucky,” said Keaton. “My dear friend, Carole Bayer Sager, brought it to me, and once I heard it, I knew I must record it. It is exquisitely produced (and co-written) by Jonas, and the words touch your soul so deeply. It was my honor to do this with Carole and Jonas. It gave me such joy.”
‘It’s a silent night’
Sager and Myrin’s lyrics recall a first Christmas without a loved one.
All the children build a snowman
Their laughter fills the whole land
Wrapping gifts around the fire
Yet I feel all alone
Hearing “I’ll Be Home For Christmas”
It only makes me miss him
When you love someone for so, so long
Yet they’re not coming home
I never thought I’d do this on my own
The snow falls on my window
I wish that I could let go
It’s a silent night
It’s another year
The first Christmas without you here
“This morning, my heart is filled with gratitude for each and every one of you,” shared Keaton on Instagram the day she released “The First Christmas” along with a video. “The love you’ve given my debut holiday single ‘First Christmas’ has been the most beautiful gift I could ever imagine.”
She concluded, “Your comments, your stories, and the way you’ve shared your own ‘First Christmas’ journeys have touched me deeply. It reminds me of the peace we find in the love and memories we hold close. When we share these together, we are never alone.”
Sager and Myrin Remember Keaton
Following Keaton’s death on October 11, 2025, at age 79, Myrin recalled working with Keaton on the song in 2024. “To have been trusted to help bring her lifelong dream of recording an original song to life is something I’ll carry with me forever,” he said. “Beyond the song itself, it’s the memories from our time together that I hold closest. Diane always filled the room with laughter and little jokes that kept us smiling, and always arrived so stylishly, as if ready for a Vogue shoot at any moment. I will never forget when she called me in tears, saying that getting to sing this song was one of the greatest gifts of her career.”
Myrin added, “It was a dream she had carried her whole life, to sing and record an original song, and being able to help her bring that dream to life with Carole was incredibly special. Diane was fearless, curious, generous, and full of love in everything she did. Her voice, her heart, and her art will live on in those notes and in the legacy she leaves behind.”
Sager remembered visiting her friend weeks earlier. “She was a magic light for everyone,” said Sager. “I just loved her. “She was so special, she just lit up a room with her energy. She was happy and upbeat, and taking photographs of everything she saw. She was completely creative; she never stopped creating.”
Sager added, “She so loved recording this song. She was almost childlike about it. She was so authentic when she sang it, I mean, she just sang it like she was singing it, and she was sort of acting it, you know, because she is a great actress. And then she’d start to cry when she was singing it. But she did such a beautiful job.”
