The story of Kansas' Carry On Wayward Son is more upsetting than you thought
- Adam English
- Oct 9
- 6 min read
Carry On Wayward Son is one of those songs that always gives me goosebumps. That acapella intro… gets me every time. But did you know that while the track arguably ‘made’ Kansas commercially, it also all but destroyed them?
Let’s start this story in 1976. Kansas by this point had released 3 well received albums. They had toured with some of the most successful bands of the time, including Fleetwood Mac, and were seen by many as an incredible live band. However, this wasn’t working in their favour. Some bands saw them as too good to be an opening act, but they had not had enough commercial success at this stage to do their own tours on that level.
As Kerry Livgren told Classic Rock in 2004:
"It was a frustrating time. Having opened for just about every group you could possibly name, we had become such a hot property that nobody would play with us any more. For instance, Mick Fleetwood later told me that Fleetwood Mac died a death every time we went on first. We were a hard act to follow."
Kansas had the makings of a superstar band. The only thing they were missing was a killer single that would get loads of radio airplay and out of this weird limbo between support act and headline act.
The band were about to start writing for their fourth album, Leftoverture, when the pressure really started to build. Don Kirshner, the music mogul who had taken a chance in signing Kansas when no one else would, made it clear to them that this was their final chance to really take off, or they would be dropped from the label.
Kirshner himself had always been very supportive of the band and loved their music, but he was forced to look at it from a business perspective in this case, and if the band weren’t successful commercially, quite frankly they wouldn’t make the label enough money.
Message received, the band returned to their hometown Topeka, Kansas, to start writing their new album.
It wasn’t smooth sailing to begin with. Steve Walsh, one of the band’s songwriters, began to suffer from writer's block. It seemed that for Walsh the well had run dry, much to Kerry Livgren’s frustration.
“Back then I wrote maybe 70 percent of each album, with Steve supplying the rest, and on the very first day of rehearsals, Steve came to me and said that he had nothing — not a single song. I don’t relish that kind of pressure, but with hindsight, it really brought out the best in me.”
There became a pattern in how the album developed. Livgren would go home each evening and write, and then in rehearsals the next day the rest of the band would learn the new song and perfect it. Rinse and repeat.
The band were impressed with Livgren’s compositions and the excitement for the new album began to build. However, they still had not found the radio friendly single that was going to propel them back into Don Kirshner’s good books.
Eventually, the band had thrown together enough songs for the album. But Livgren’s songwriting genius struck one more time. One last minute addition was about to change everything for Kansas.
The night before they were due to start rehearsing the finished album, Livgren had written a song called Carry On Wayward Son. The songwriting process had been easy for this one, according to Livgren in the 2015 Miracles Out of Nowhere documentary.
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!”
As soon as the rest of the band heard the song, they knew it was special. It had that little bit of something that might just save their careers.
The track starts with an acapella chorus, which immediately grabs your attention. The harmonies scratch an itch that nobody realised they had. After the intro, the song then launches into that insanely catchy riff.
The lyrics speak about being under pressure, reflecting the situation the band were in at the time of writing it. Lines like “I was soaring ever higher, but I flew too high” show how Livgren, proud of the band’s success so far, was concerned they were about to lose it all. Changes in tempo, slick instrumentals and crisp vocals characterise the rest of the song and it's absolutely no surprise that it did as well as it went on to do. It became a hit, and they were finally getting airplay on the radio.
Backing up slightly, eager to let Don Kirshner know about what they had just created, the band gave him a call once they had finished recording the track. He instantly loved it. The band had been saved by Carry On Wayward Son.
Exactly what happened that night when Livgren wrote the song remains under debate. While some might assume Livgren just worked particularly well under pressure, he himself saw the creation of this song as divine intervention. The group had always had strong religious beliefs, and Livgren saw this song as the ultimate journey of looking for truth and meaning.
“It’s an autobiographical song. Parallel to my musical career I’ve always been on a spiritual sojourn, looking for truth and meaning. It was a song of self-encouragement. I was telling myself to keep on looking and I would find what I sought.”
And you can’t really blame him for thinking that - the song had seemed to come out of nowhere.
Carry On Wayward Son peaked at No.11 in the US, which in turn propelled the album Leftoverture to No. 5 in the Billboard Hot 100. The band had never experienced this kind of commercial success before. Their label decided to continue with them and it seemed like they were on track to have a long, successful career.
However, in reality, things weren’t so rosy. In the process of creating their follow up album, Point of Know Return, Walsh found his way out of his writer’s block. He ended up writing the majority of the album, which actually peaked at a higher place than Leftoverture. It was Livgren, though, who had written the most successful track on the album, Dust in the Wind.
Jealousy was beginning to build behind the scenes, as the writers of these hits started to receive massive pay cheques. Having your name in the songwriting credits of a successful song meant you got royalties for it. The rest of the band, such as guitarist Rich Williams, didn’t get these financial bonuses. Instead, they had to make their money from touring. This, according to Williams in the Miracles Out Of Nowhere doc, caused some tension:
“When the writers [of the hits] suddenly receive very large cheques indeed, it breeds some animosity. Some of us found that situation tough. Certain people also started saying: ‘I don’t wanna work as hard or travel as much.’ I’d say: ‘That’s because you’ve got yours. Let me get mine.’ Money changes everything.”
On top of this, Livgren had become increasingly involved with his faith, leading to his and Dave Hope’s exit from the band in 1983. Livgren felt that the band’s artistic direction had become stagnant, and himself wanted to focus on Christian-focused music and explore different musical approaches. Him and Hope formed the Christian rock band ‘AD’ with Warren Ham and Michael Gleason.
Livgren went on to make guest appearances for Kansas after this, his last recorded work with them being the 2000 album Somewhere to Elsewhere, which he wrote, produced and appeared on.
Despite the band looking different, the legacy of Carry On Wayward Son lives on. In 1995, almost 20 years after it was released, it was the most played song on US classic rock radio. It also has appeared in some comedy shows and films, including South Park, Anchorman and Happy Gilmore. While that may be a slightly unusual way for the song to live on, the band themselves were honoured.
Kansas to this day still tour, although without Livgren. They still enjoy playing Carry On Wayward Son live after all these years.
So, who knows what would have happened to Kansas had Carry On Wayward Son not been written that night. Perhaps they would have been dropped from their label and faded into obscurity. Things could have looked very different. Luckily for all of us though, Kansas pulled it out the bag and created one of the greatest songs in rock history.
Great work mongoose