After its release,
Arista Records President
Clive Davis found the song and wanted
Melissa Manchester to record a cover; instead, he gave it to Deardorff & Joseph, a duo of Danny Deardorff and Marcus Joseph, who previously opened for
Seals and Crofts, and they recorded it for their eponymous debut album. Released as a single in January 1977, with "The Little Kings of Earth" on the B-side, the song peaked at number twenty-two on the U.S.
Easy Listening chart for two weeks in April 1977. The single did not do well on the
Billboard Hot 100, and "bubbled under" at number 109. Nineteen months after its initial debut,
England Dan & John Ford Coley covered the song for the album ''
Some Things Don't Come Easy''. Produced by
Kyle Lehning and
engineered by Lehning and Marshall Morgan with help from Tom Knox,
Big Tree Records issued it as a single on February 17, 1978; the song's debut preceded its album. A
Billboard magazine writer described England Dan & John Ford Coley's cover of "We'll Never Have to Say Goodbye Again" as a soft ballad with a "catchy chorus" and "excellent vocal harmonizing". In a review of ''Some Things Don't Come Easy
for AllMusic, Joe Viglione called it "far and away the best song on the album" and wrote that its "hook and instrumentation are so radio-friendly that the 45 could be put on repeat and after the 30th spin not bore like many of the tracks [on Some Things Don't Come Easy
]". Another Billboard'' writer listed "We'll Never Have to Say Goodbye Again" as a "hot cut" from the album, along with "You Can't Dance", "Calling for You Again", and "Lovin' Someone on a Rainy Night". "Calling for You Again", written by Coley and Bob Grundy, was the
B-side to the single.
Cash Box said that it has "a gentle uplift to a strong chorus, effective vocals and piano-guitar interaction." In February,
Maureen McGovern also recorded a cover that Epic Records released as a single. After Deardorff & Joseph separated, Marcia Day, who managed McGovern, became the manager of Danny Deardorff, while Susan Joseph, who managed Dan & Coley, became the manager of Marcus Joseph. According to Day, Susan told her that "We'll Never Have to Say Goodbye Again" would "absolutely not" be Dan & Coley's next single, and that McGovern could release a cover; Susan, however, states that she did not know of its plans for future release. On March 17, 1978, McGovern promoted her song on the fourth season of the variety
talk show Dinah!, which aired on
NBC. Described by Epic as the "title song" to McGovern's newest album, the cover did not appear on her
next album and the single failed to chart. ==Chart performance==