Steve Dorff also e-mailed American Songwriter to talk about the importance of the song.
The refrains pivot from hopelessly trying to envision life before her or without her to instead celebrating all that she has brought and taught him: Through the years, I never had a doubt/ I learned what life’s about by loving you.” He comes to the conclusion that he doesn’t ever want anything to change, as the past becomes the future: “As long as it’s okay, I’ll stay with you through the years.” “ I can’t remember what I used to do/ who I trusted, whom I listened to before, Rogers sings, suggesting that maybe those the narrator previously relied upon had steered him in the wrong direction. It insinuates that what was there before wasn’t really worth remembering anyway, because his life only truly began when she entered the picture. The song is told from the perspective of a narrator attempting in vain to recall his life before his partner entered it. But it was a reciprocal connection, as Rogers was also sinking his teeth into heartfelt lyrics and a melody that soars in all the right places, including a final-act key change that brings down the house. Not many interpreters could have brought off the earnest emotional content in the way that he did, letting the feelings show without overdoing it. What Panzer and Dorff created sat right in Rogers’ wheelhouse. “He not only loved it but wrote the melody to the lyric before dinner was served. “Steve said, ‘Tell me the lyric,’ and (tears streaming down my face), I read him the lyric,” Panzer remembers. That’s why I wrote the lyric to ‘Through The Years.’”įrom there, Panzer took it to Dorff, a frequent collaborator, over dinner and got emotional presenting the song. The only relationships I knew and valued. “But… I couldn’t think of a song that spoke about the great joys and benefits of long-term relationships. “I realized that there were a hundred (if not a thousand) songs about falling in love, memorable affairs, losing love, regrets, and the pain of lost love,” Panzer says. In this case, lyricist Marty Panzer and composer Steve Dorff wrote “Through The Years.” Panzer tells American Songwriter in an e-mail what his motivation was for writing the lyrics. Rogers was a master of taking the sentiments of disparate songwriters and making them his own with ease thanks to his smooth, reassuring delivery. But you could argue that its themes of love and fidelity strengthening over time have made it one of his most enduring songs. “Through The Years,” found on Rogers’ 1981 album Share Your Love, came up a bit short of that mark, settling in at No. In a stretch between 19, Rogers amassed eight Top Ten singles. No country artist crossed over to the pop charts in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s with as much ease as Kenny Rogers.