Carry On Wayward Son: K-Tel, Kansas, and a Story of Regret
It’s hard to believe that it’s been 40 years since “Carry On Wayward Son” first rocked the airwaves. But it’s true. Kansas released their breakthrough album Leftoverture in 1976, and “Carry On Wayward Son” hit number 11 on the charts in early 1977. That song was so important to me as a teenager that it was one of two song titles that I wrote in permanent marker on the front of the boom box I owned as a kid. But as much as I love that song, it also reminds me of one of my more painful high school memories, and one of my biggest regrets.
As I’ve written earlier, the first new album I ever owned was a cassette of The Long Run by the Eagles. But that’s not exactly true. That was my first new album by a single artist. The first album that I bought with my own money was a 1979 K-Tel cassette called The Rock Album. If I had to pick just one album that was the soundtrack of my adolescence, it would be The Rock Album. Kansas, Boston, Styx, Toto, ELO–the bands on this album became constant companions through my high school and college years. There were some great songs on that album:
- “Don’t Bring Me Down” by Electric Light Orchestra
- “Dirty White Boy” by Foreigner
“Two Tickets to Paradise” by Eddie Money- “Something’s on the Move” by Jethro Tull
- “Don’t Fear the Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult
- “The Dream Police” by Cheap Trick
- “Bad Case of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor)” by Robert Palmer
- “Renegade” by Styx
- “More Than a Feeling” by Boston
- “Too Rolling Stoned” by Robin Trower
- “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin'” by Journey
- “Isn’t It Time” by the Babys
- “Carry on Wayward Son” by Kansas
- “Hold the Line” by Toto
In fact, I love that album so much, that I’ve recreated it digitally with iTunes, and I play it when I’m feeling particularly nostalgic–which happens to be more and more frequently these days.
As I suppose it was intended to, The Rock Album got me interested in each of those bands, and because I loved “Carry on Wayward Son” so much, I eventually bought the full album Leftoverture. I thought the album art was cool, and I loved hearing Robbie Steinhardt’s violin soaring among all the electric guitars and keyboards. I studied the album’s cryptic yet spiritual lyrics, trying to figure out who Father Padilla might be, and learning that a magnum opus was an artists’s most important work. It wasn’t long before I became a huge Kansas fan and was determined to collect all their albums.
But that’s where this story becomes painful to tell.
You see, during our senior in high school, some friends and I were over at our friend Shelby’s house. Shelby used to have us over all the time, and he loved music as much as I did. This particular day we got to talking about how much we loved Kansas, and I found out he had a cassette of Monolith, the one Kansas album I didn’t own. When he found out I didn’t have it, he offered to lend it to me. Shelby was generous like that. I took it eagerly and listened to it for several months. Before school got out for the summer, Shelby asked me for the album back. To my shame and regret, I lied and told him I had already given it back to him. I wanted to keep it so that my collection would be complete, and because I liked the album so much. Shelby looked at me for a few seconds, then shrugged his shoulders and said he must have forgotten. I don’t know if he knew I was lying, or if it just wasn’t a big deal to him. And I’ll never know, because we each went our separate ways after graduation, and a few years later Shelby was involved in a fatal car accident.
He was trying to change the cassette tape in his car stereo when he lost control of the truck he was driving and went off the highway into a ditch.
I never got the chance to give Monolith back to Shelby or tell him how sorry I was for stealing it.
It’s a little thing, I know, a piece of plastic that probably cost five bucks back in 1980. And people were borrowing tapes and dubbing copies all the time. But this looms large in my memory as a betrayal of friendship and a moment of intense selfishness.
A monolith is “a large single upright block of stone, especially one shaped into a pillar or monument.” That copy of Monolith that Shelby gave to me has become a monument to a painful incident in my life and a reminder that you never know how much time you have to reconcile with loved ones. Even the titles of many of Monolith‘s songs remind me of the incident: “On the Other Side,” “Angels Have Fallen,” “How My Soul Cries Out for You,” “A Glimpse of Home,” “Away from You,” “Stay Out of Trouble,” “Reason to Be.”
So here’s to Shelby, and to not waiting until it’s too late.
Carry On Wayward Son
(Chorus)
Carry on my wayward son,
For there’ll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Now don’t you cry no more
Once I rose above the noise and confusion
Just to get a glimpse beyond the illusion
I was soaring ever higher, but I flew too high
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 dreamin’,
I can hear them say
(Chorus)
Carry on my wayward son,
For there’ll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Now don’t you cry no more
Masquerading as a man with a reason
My charade is the event of the season
And if I claim to be a wise man, it surely
means that I don’t know
On a stormy sea of moving emotion
Tossed about I’m like a ship on the ocean
I set a course for winds of fortune, but
I hear the voices say
Carry on, you will always remember
Carry on, nothing equals the splendor
Now your life’s no longer empty
Surely heaven waits for you
(Chorus)
