What to do when the song you are working on has a long, somewhat extended instrumental intro but you want to snare in the listener? Maybe you could sing the chorus a cappella first, showcasing the band’s choir of voices without instrumental accompaniment?
Carry on my wayward son
There’ll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don’t you cry no more
The a cappella vocal opening of Carry On Wayward Son grabs your attention right away, as well as giving the track a very distinctive intro. The voices blend together wonderfully, as they always did.
Kansas have always had a tremendous sense of harmonizing, and with a melody that is strong and commands attention, the intro had exactly the wanted effect. Everybody would stop what they were doing, hold their voices, and listen. This would end up working in their favour on radio as well, where disc jockeys often felt they couldn’t talk over it.
With everybody paying attention, the band is ready to launch into the instrumental sections that make up the remainder of the intro. The intro alone consists of four different musical parts: the a capella chorus, the initial riff on guitar with additional keyboard padding, a guitar solo section, and a stop-start riff section which eventually dies down, making room for the first verse to begin.
Such an elaborate intro was almost unheard of for something that attempted to get radio play and would hopefully become a hit single. It wasn’t so much that it is long, but the fact that it is busy. There is a lot happening in it, and it is rather progressive and hard-edged. It is said that the general public’s attention span is limited and you should not wear them out. On the other hand, the sheer scale of the intro alone is designed to impress and thrill. It shows a band bursting with ideas and eager to flex their musical muscle. They were keen to get a hit, but wanted it on their own terms.
As the final part of the intro dies down, a lone voice rises. The first verse is underway. After the ferocious start of the song, the first verse sounds quiet in comparison as most of the instruments have died down. The voice sings with just a soft piano keyboard accompaniment.
Once I rose above the noise and confusion
Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion
I was soaring ever higher
But I flew too high
At this point the drums and bass comes in, with further instruments falling in along the way. It still has a sparse feel, but the song gets a lovely lift from the instrumentation as the song starts building up again.
Though my eyes could see, I still was a blind man
Though my mind could think, I still was a mad man
I hear the voices when I’m dreaming
I can hear them say
Carry On Wayward Son is the first track on the fourth Kansas album Leftoverture, and the first single from that album. It remains the band’s highest selling album, having been certified 5 times platinum in the United States.
The band consisted of Steve Walsh on lead vocals and keyboards, Kerry Livgren on guitar and keyboards, Phil Ehart on drums, Robby Steinhardt on violin and vocals, Rich Williams on guitar, and Dave Hope on bass.
The Leftoverture album did not only propel Kansas to international stardom, it also saved the band. None of their previous records had been big sellers, and the third album Masque (1975) was even considered a commercial failure, although it had sold around 200K units. The record company simply had higher hopes for them, and felt the band played a progressive style of progressive rock that hindered their ability to get serious radio play.
Kansas were signed to Don Kirshner’s eponymous label, and while Kirshner personally enjoyed the band’s music and believed in them, he was forced to be a businessman and let the band know that the next record was their last chance: they had to produce a hit record or be dropped by the label. Overwhelmed and distressed with the predicament, the band returned to their hometown of Topeka, Kansas, to relax and begin writing for the next album.
While this situation may seem harsh, this was in effect the band’s fourth chance. The band had been given several albums already to develop – a chance few bands get any longer these days. The hope was now that some pressure would help.
Off the bat, it did not. Lead singer and keyboard player Steve Walsh began suffering from writer’s block, which hindered his songwriting contributions. It was left up to lead guitar player and the band’s other principal songwriter Kerry Livgren to generate song ideas and lyrics.
“I call Leftoverture ‘the pressure album’,” says Livgren in the documentary film Miracles Out of Nowhere. “The pressure fell on me! It didn’t fall on the band, necessarily. It should have, really, but it fell on me because Steve dried up as a writer. I came to the first rehearsal, and said ‘Hey Steve, what have you got?’ ‘I haven’t got anything.’ ‘What? You don’t have any songs, and I’ve got… two? What are we gonna do?’ So I went home that night, after we’d learnt those two songs, and had to write the third song. I wrote it, came to rehearsal the next day, we learnt the third one.”
This would became the way they worked out the songs for the album. Livgren would keep writing new songs at home every evening, and bring them in for the band to rehearse. In the Miracles Out of Nowhere documentary, drummer Phil Ehart reveals that the band was mightily impressed with pretty much everything that Livgren was coming up with for the album: “Sitting there during Leftoverture and having him walk in every day, it was so exciting. We’d just go, ‘This is gonna be awesome! Here comes Kerry, what’s he got today?’ He could say ‘I just have this song I wrote called The Wall.’ We’re just going, ‘Wow. When did you write this?!!” ‘Well, I kinda threw it together last night.’ I was just going, ‘Seriously?!’”
The band would eventually have enough songs worked out for the album. They were good songs – great, even – and the songs started becoming really well rehearsed. It was time to pack up and head into the recording studio. That’s when lightning struck. Again.
The album that had been written and rehearsed did at that point not include Carry On Wayward Son. The track was a last minute addition to the album, and was almost not included. Livgren wrote the song right before they were going into the studio to start recording the album. They were not even looking for more songs at that point.
“We had rehearsed Leftoverture,” says Ehart. “We got all the songs done. We’re packing up our gear. I remember I was breaking down my drum set. And Kerry walks over and he goes, ‘Hey man, I’ve got another song!’”
With a smile, Livgren remembers that “The night before the last day of rehearsal, I went home and I wrote the song called Carry On Wayward Son. I sat down with a guitar and out it came! One note led to the next note. It just had a magical feel about it. I’ve never known how this happens, it just beams in!”
At that point, the band had been polishing the songs they had, not bringing in new ones. When Kerry told them “I’ve got one more song that you might want to hear,” it was probably curiosity mixed with admiration for what he had been coming up with so far that made them take the time to listen. Their jaws dropped as he started playing Carry On Wayward Son. They knew right away that this song had that something extra that might save their careers.
They had to bring that song with them into the studio as rehearsal time had run short. Producer Jeff Glixman remembers it well: “We got down to the studio and Kerry presented that song. And it was magic! It was magic from the word ‘go’.”
Phil Ehart still sounds flabbergasted at the unlikeliness of that song turning up. “Not only is it the miracle of him developing as a songwriter where nobody even knows where it’s coming from, but at the last minute, he brings the first break-out song that we’d been needing!”
Don Kirshner was eagerly waiting to hear if the band would manage to come up with a potential hit song. When the song was ready in the studio, Glixman and the band decided to give him a call. “So I called Don Kirshner, cranked the thing up over the telephone, played him the opening of the song, and I could hear him talking over the phone already. ‘I love it! I just love it!’”
In late 2011, Livgren stated in a short interview at his home that the lyrics were partially about himself and the struggles and pressures he was facing at the time when the band’s career was on the line. The piano interlude and accompanying verse express how happy the band’s success had made him, as well as how sad and fearful he was that it might possibly be over (“I was soaring ever higher, but I flew too high”). However, the chorus expresses hope that everything will work out and that he must simply keep going (“Carry on, my wayward son. There’ll be peace when you are done”).
No matter what you believe in, the theme in the chorus that there will be “peace” at the end is a fitting wrap-up for any life journey description. Whether there’s a heaven or there’s nothing, both can equal peace.
Livgren became an evangelical Christian in 1980, after which he would frequently visit religious themes in his songs. Many have taken Carry On Wayward Son in a similar way because of this, but according to Livgren, the song was not written to express anything specifically religious. More precisely, the song expresses spiritual searching, and Livgren would claim that his songwriting up to that point was all about ‘searching’ in some way.
Regarding this song, he explained: “I felt a profound urge to ‘Carry On’ and continue the search. I saw myself as the ‘Wayward Son,’ alienated from the ultimate reality, and yet striving to know it or him. The positive note at the end (‘Surely heaven waits for you’) seemed strange and premature, but I felt impelled to include it in the lyrics. It proved to be prophetic.”
Interestingly, there seems to be a link between the last song from Kansas’ previous album Masque and Carry On Wayward Son which starts off the next one. Masque ends with the song The Pinnacle, which has the following last verse:
I stood where no man goes
Above the din I rose
Life is amusing though we are losing
Drowned in tears of awe
The verse speaks of rising above the din. As defined in the Cambridge dictionary, “din” is a loud, unpleasant, confused noise which lasts for a long time. The first verse of Carry On Wayward Son opens with “Once I rose above the noise and confusion.”
The album Leftoverture was released on 21 October 1976. Thanks to the success of the Carry On Wayward Son single, which was released nearly a month later on 19 November 1976, was pushed into #5 on the main US Billboard chart, while the single became the bands’ first Top 40 US hit (just missing the Top 10 with a peak of #11). This was more than enough for the song to take hold and start being played on radio, which is pretty much has been ever since.
It is often regarded as one of the greatest rock songs of its era. It gave Kansas the staying power they needed to keep producing records with Kirshner, and earned Kerry Livgren the reputation as one of the most respected songwriters in rock music.
How much things had changed only became apparent to the band as they went out on tour again. They were used to being the opening act, or maybe play moderate sized clubs in some select markets. The hit single had suddenly made them into full-fledged headliners, sometimes even playing arenas, all around the world.
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