Kansas – Carry on Wayward Son
About The Song
“Carry On Wayward Son” was the final song brought into rehearsals at Kansas’ downtown Topeka storage space, as the prog-rock band wrapped late-1975 preparations to record their fourth album.
“We had the album pretty well written,” remembers guitarist Richard Williams. “And it was the last day and we were basically going to pack up. We’d been working for a while, hashing out all the material so when Kerry (Livgren, Kansas’ guitarist/keyboardist) came in and said, ‘Oh, I’ve got one more song’ nobody really wanted to do it. We were just ready to move on and start recording but, ‘Sure, OK let’s hear it’ and so he started laying it out and, ‘Ooh that’s got some potential’ and we learned it a little bit and packed up.”
“Carry on Wayward Son” mixed guitar-hero thrust with an ambitious arrangement and singalong chorus anyone who’s heard it once can recall forever.
After it was recorded and released, the track would change everything for Kansas. The accomplished, 1976 album it opened, “Leftoverture,” would sell more than 6 million albums, giving a band previously yet to find commercial footing a new lease on life, career-wise. And lead to future hits like introspective acoustic cut “Dust in the Wind.”
Four decades later, “Carry On Wayward Son” continues to cause classic-rock radio listeners to crank up their stereos’ volume.
