This Kenny Rogers Hit Was Intended for Van Stephenson Instead

Kenny Rogers’ 1987 country hit “Twenty Years Ago” was originally recorded for solo artist Van Stephenson, before Rogers secured the song and released it himself. The story matters because Rogers’ version used the backing tracks made for Stephenson, after Rogers struggled to match that recording.

Songwriter Wood Newton says the song took about six years to reach a release, with Fred Knobloch and Juice Newton among those who recorded it earlier. Rogers’ version became a Top 5 country single. Written around 20 years after Newton left high school, its reflection on returning to one’s hometown may have been slow to find a release partly because a lyric about someone who never came back recalled a war the country was trying to move on from.