Top Ten Songs by Kansas

Kansas was a highly successful progressive rock band from the 1970s, combining the extended instrumental sections and grandiose nature of their English prog rock contemporaries with a commercial, accessible, song-based arena rock sensibility. Their massive hit songs "Carry On My Wayward Son" and "Dust In the Wind" are staples of classic rock radio. They changed their line-up at the end of the ‘70s, trading singer Steve Walsh for John Elefante, and soon afterwards head songwriter and guitarist/keyboardist Kerry Livgren left the group to pursue his Christian rock group AD. The band has remained active in various forms since, taking in new members including virtuoso guitarist Steve Morse and violinist David Ragsdale. But most will know Kansas for the period of the mid-to-late ‘70s, when they produced their hit records "Leftoverture" and "Point of Know Return".

1. Carry On My Wayward Son

The vocal refrain of the title and the hard-driving guitar rock riff make this song a must-love for fans of classic rock, and perhaps THE classic Kansas song, although like some other hit songs it is more musically sophisticated than one might have expected from a "pop" song. From "Leftoverture".

2. Dust In the Wind

One of the band's few ballads, and indeed an almost uncharacteristic work, this melancholy acoustic piece, which includes a solo Robby Steinhart's violin, describes the seeming futile impermanence of human life and activity: "All we do crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see." This is a sentiment that songwriter Kerry Livgren would later refute after his conversion to Christianity. From "The Point of Know Return."

3. Song For America

One of Kansas' earlier songs from the album of the same, this large-scale piece was inspired by a plane flight over America, and the feeling is well communicated in the song in its soaring, decidedly cinematic feeling. Lots of interesting keyboards here, with a piano solo in the middle and a stirring synthesizer hook during the second part of the main theme.

4. Belexes