The Spiritual Meaning of Carry On Wayward Son by Kansas

It was late 1975, on the eve of Kansas’ final rehearsal before departing for Louisiana to record their fourth album, Leftoverture. Kansas songwriter and guitarist Kerry Livgren was staying at his parents’ home in Topeka when he sat down with his guitar and, to his surprise, “Carry On Wayward Son” began to emerge. “One note led to the next note,” he later recalled. “It just had a magical feel about it. I’ve never known how this happens—it just beams in.”

The timing could hardly have been more consequential. Kansas’ first three albums had failed to produce a hit, and the label had warned the band that their fourth album would be their last chance: if it failed to deliver a hit, they would be dropped. Compounding the pressure, singer Steve Walsh had brought no new material, leaving Kerry to write or co-write the entire album, most of it during the rehearsal period.

When Kerry arrived the following day, drummer Phil Ehart was already breaking down his drum set and the band was preparing to leave. Kerry announced that he had one more song for them. The exhausted musicians initially greeted the news with groans, but once he began playing, their mood changed: they could hear right away the song had that special something which just might save their careers.

Likened by many of its listeners to the Parable of the Prodigal Son, Kerry maintains that the song was simply expressing his own restless spiritual searching at the time, with no conscious connection to any parable. To me, the song represents the archetypal flow of a "spiritual experience". We will explore this idea by overlaying a narrative, true or not, onto Kerry's life as the character in the song having such an experience.

Let's see how this narrative plays out as we go through the lyrics, skipping the Intro:

Once I rose above the noise and confusion

Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion

Kerry recalls a spontaneous spiritual experience he had in which a powerful clarity dawned, lifting him to a reality he did not suspect existed. He rose above the miasma of confusion and senseless “noise” in which he was thoroughly steeped without realizing it. So stark was the contrast between these two ways of seeing that the prior way could only be called an “illusion”.

I was soaring ever higher, but I flew too high.

As spiritual experiences often do, his state kept building upon itself. The more clarity he had, the more clarity he would yet gain in a virtuous cycle lifting him to seemingly limitless heights like a tornado on the Kansas plains.

Though my eyes could see, I still was a blind man

Though my mind could think, I still was a madman

His perception was imbued with the glow of truth, his thoughts were like raindrops of divine wisdom. With the humility of a simple man he was unraveling the secrets of existence in an ascending current of revelation—though he was not yet fully purified. 

As A Course In Miracles says, “Innocence is not a partial attribute. It is not real until it is total. The partly innocent are apt to be quite foolish at times.” With his ascending energy and mounting inner power, this yet unpurified part of him now explosively expressed itself, ripping apart the spiritual experience and leaving him once again lost in the desolate wasteland of delusion, yet more devastated knowing he could never again mistake this pale illusion for his home.

I hear the voices when I'm dreaming

I can hear them say

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

In the night Kerry’s deeper wisdom would emerge, encouraging him that although he did not know the way back to the peace and exuberance he had tasted, nothing could change the truth that it was his eventual destiny to abide there. 

Like the prodigal son, he might well continue on many useless journeys, squandering his true inheritance of light, struggling for every little lesson that would eventually lead him home.

Yet one day, no matter how far off it was, he would be done. On that day, the shame of his spiritual youth would be forgotten, the trials of his journey no more personal than stories in a magazine. In this knowledge lay a kernel of peace that he could carry with him, providing courage and shortening his journey.

Masquerading as a man with a reason

My charade is the event of the season

Feeling empty and lost for an authentic way forward, Kerry desperately tries inventing an identity in the world that could cover up his now glaring lack of conviction and purpose within the false world. He tries to fool others into believing he has something of real value. His farce of a life is overblown and more unbearably sad to him than ever, but he doesn’t know how to stop.

And if I claim to be a wise man, well

It surely means that I don't know

A sneaky trick of his ego is to flash distorted bits of wisdom from his previously exalted state before others to prove the authenticity of his current act. Here he admits that this behavior only proves his foolishness.

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

As he is dizzied by the restless forces within him, his ego takes hold of the ship and steers him in pursuit of outward achievement and success.

But I hear the voices say

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 (No)

A still small voice within urges him to mind his real journey, which is the inner journey toward truth and wholeness.

(Carry on) You will always remember

(Carry on) Nothing equals the splendor

Lost as he may be, the spiritual experience he had was so different, so new, that it could never be forgotten, but will remain for him as an evergreen hope. The world he sees is nothing by comparison, which pushes him to continue seeking beyond it for the truth he had glimpsed.

Now your life's no longer empty

Surely Heaven waits for you

The memory of the light which was revealed to him increasingly becomes his North Star. He has the seeds of a true purpose, offering him something real—and he knows that it leads only one way: to his true home where he can be exuberant forever.

Carry on, my wayward son

There'll be peace when you are done

Lay your weary head to rest

(Don't you cry) Don't you cry no more

No more

Woo, what a song! It's amazing that Kerry was able to convey so much meaning with so few lyrics. There is no excess, the words are perfectly placed. To me this speaks of higher inspiration. Once Kerry's masterful composition was brought fully to life by the band, those few lyrics helped create one of rock's most enduring anthems.

Now, do I think Kerry really had such a spiritual experience? No, not in the way I described. I think that like many artists and poets he was tapping into an archetypal pattern that exists independently of his personal experience—divining it and presenting it beautifully for us without necessarily understanding all that is contained in it. He only had his own experiences and past learnings by which to interpret what came through him. Naturally, he interpreted the song to be about his life in the band, and his search for a fitting spiritual framework for himself—a search which he was intensely engaged in at the time. Kerry even admits about the song's final line "Surely Heaven waits for you", that it "seemed strange and premature", yet he felt compelled to include it nonetheless.

Having no definite meaning, the song is for us to interpret in a way that is meaningful to ourselves.

Listen to Carry On Wayward Son by Kansas - Kerry is the guitarist with straight blonde hair and a blonde mustache

Reference

SB, “The Story Behind the Song: ‘Carry On Wayward Son’ by Kansas,” Rocking in the Norselands, March 25, 2023.