DUST IN THE WIND / KANSAS 🎼🎼
Dust in The Wind is the name of a song performed by the American progressive rock band Kansas, released in 1977. It reached #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.
https://www.deviantart.com/shadowhurts/art/Kansas-The-Point-of-Know-Return-814131535
It was written by the band's guitarist Kerry Livgren, and was one of the band's first acoustic pieces; its soft melody and melancholic lyrics differ ostensibly from the band's other hits, such as "Carry On Wayward Son" and "The Wall" which has a greater degree of electric guitars and experimentation.
The song's interlude contains a distinctive melody performed by Robby Steinhardt, doubling his violin, viola and cello solos, which were in turn written by Livgren.
https://www.deviantart.com/fantasticplaces/art/Kansas-4-Slide-608070223
Kerry Livgren told the story behind the song in an interview dating back to 1992:
"A lot of people seemed to identify with what I was saying in the song and that really surprised me, because it's a rather sad song. One day I started reading a book that contained poetry about American Indians and I came to that verse where an Indian said: "for all we are is dust in the Wind", and I thought, "well, it's true". Here I have all this fame, material possessions, I have a goal in my life that I've managed to achieve up to this point, but I'm going back to the ground, and what does this whole life mean in light of that? And that's the message of the song, but the amazing thing was that so many people identified with that message. That song ended up entering the country charts, became popular everywhere and crossed all kinds of borders. As the lead guitarist in the band, I've always been more of a rock and roll style electric guitar player. I've never been much of an acoustic guitar player, so at the time I was trying to expand my horizons in music. I had an acoustic guitar and was trying to learn fingerpick technique. I did a deduction exercise so I could master it, and, as I was sitting in my study room playing this, my wife walked by and listened for a moment and said "that sounds pretty good, you should put lyrics to that tune" I said, "no, honey, this is just a...I'm trying to learn this technique", to which she replies, "no, no, that sounds pretty good, don't go forgetting the melody" and she kept bugging me about it, the melody was sticking to her, so I turned it into a song. It was close to the release date of "Point of Know Return", we had learned the songs pretty well and we were about to finish it off when the guys asked me "do you have any more songs? and I said "well, I have this one, but you guys won't like it, it doesn't sound very Kansas and I'm hesitant to play it", "go on, play the song", they said, I was shocked, in fact, I refused the very idea of even considering it and actually fought with the band because I thought that song didn't fit our style. Anyway, that shows you the value of a song, because in the end it turned out to be our biggest hit.
The song crossed several genres and was played on rock, country and contemporary music radio stations.
It is made with a deep spiritual meaning about life and how we should face it.