“Carry On My Wayward Son” by Kansas

song info

    “Carry On My Wayward Son” by Kansas is a classic rock song.
    There is the claim that this song is about John Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia.
    Herbie Herbert (former manager of Journey) claims that the transition riff is an almost note for note from the Journey song “I’m Gonna Leave You” from their second album Look Into the Future, released earlier in 1976.

    
    U.S. Billboard Hot 100: peak #11 (eleven) in 1976

    Canadian RPM Top Singles: peak #5 (five) in 1976
    United Kingdom Singles Chart: peak #51 in 1976
     Billboard chart listings courtesy of Billboard Magazine

link to the static song information page for this song:
http://www.thissideofsanity.com/music/songs/ca/carryonwaywardson.php

    Summary quotation from Wikipedia:

    “Carry On Wayward Son” is a progressive rock single recorded by Kansas and written by Kerry Livgren for their 1976 album Leftoverture. In 1977, the song peaked at No. 11 on the Billboard pop singles chart, becoming their first Top 40 hit. The song is in chromatic-minor and features the Neapolitan chord.

    The 7" single has been certified Gold by the RIAA. This version was a much shorter version of the song, edited down to 3:26, a version that was also the band’s only single to chart in the UK, reaching number 51 there. All initial releases of the single had a B-side of “Questions of My Childhood”. The song was later re-released on the Kansas compilation albums The Best of Kansas, On the Other Side, The Kansas Boxed Set, The Ultimate Kansas, and Sail On: The 30th Anniversary Collection. It was also included on the live Kansas albums Two for the Show, Live at the Whisky, King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents Kansas, Dust in the Wind, Device, Voice, Drum, and There’s Know Place Like Home, along with the DVD companions to Device, Voice, Drum and There’s Know Place Like Home.

    This song is 96th on VH1’s 100 Greatest Hard Rock Songs.

—from Wikipedia (the Wikipedia:Text of Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License applies to Wikipedia’s block of text and possible accompanying picture, along with any alterations, transformations, and/or building upon Wikipedia’s original text that ThisSideofSanity.com applied to this block of text)

Proverb:

Better a curtain hanging motionless than a flag blowing in the wind. —Swahili Proverb