"The Last Ten Years (Superman)" by Kenny Rogers 15 Years Later

A still from the The Last Ten Years (Superman) music video

It’s been over 5400 cosmic spins around since Kenny Rogers released The Last Ten Years (Superman). This ballad peaked at 56 on the country charts during its 2006 release, and has since been largely forgotten. The world simply was not ready for a musical recap of the years 1995-2005. Especially not one that’s as completely insane as this! To celebrate its Quinceañera, here are some of the most egregiously absurd things about this weird old song.

For starters, just by looking at the title, you can tell that The Last Ten Years (Superman) is two totally separate ideas, badly mashed together. It’s both a recap of a decade’s worth of news, and a tribute to Christopher Reeve. Despite there being no evidence the two ever met, Kenny really seems to care about Reeve’s passing, judging by the lame-ass way he ends the song saying “I’m gonna miss you Chris”. But if you like the guy so much, why include a verse in his eulogy about the Y2K scare and the dot com boom?

This song tries to outdo Candle In The Wind as the ultimate celeb death song by just listing more and more deaths. The chorus of this song is literally Kenny singing the names of some famous people who died. While Reeve makes the list three times, here is a quick list of some people that were not mentioned at all: Tupac Shakur, Frank Sinatra, JFK Junior, Mother Teresa, Nina Simone, Bob Hope and Princess Diana. 

Speaking of things not mentioned… Iraq! It wouldn’t be a 00s country ballad without a weepy shout out to 9/11, but the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are not mentioned once. Based on what happened to artists formerly known as The Dixie Chicks, I get why Kenny shied away from this. But that begs the question, why do this song in the first place? Why record a song about recent news events, but not mention the most pressing issue in American life? That’s like if someone put out a song this year called The Last Ten Years (Physicist) where they mentioned Stephen Hawking’s death three times, never brought up COVID, and concluded by saying “I’m gonna miss you, Steve.”

And yet, that’s not even the most absurd part! The silliest, and frankly least comprehensible, part of this song is the line “Look at the hills we’ve climbed, the best golfer’s Black, the best rapper’s white… AND IT’S ABOUT DAMN TIME!” 

To Kenny, the only social progress made in a decade involves Eminem. How is this climbing a hill? If you want to say how impressive it is that Tiger dominated a traditionally white sport, why also mention the guy who at this point was on his fourth album about killing his wife? In 2006, I guess this was meant to show that everything was becoming more diverse, but in 2021 it seems really, really weird.

For all The Last Ten Years (Superman) got wrong, it got a lot right. It’s a damn catchy song, somehow. Plus, cellular’s replacement of the telephone continues unabated, people still ignore endless war, and gas is still expensive. What’s gonna happen next, is still anybody’s guess. Here’s to another 15 years of me making snarky comments about this song.

I’m gonna miss you Ken.