Movie Review: Unplanned

Disclaimer: This review will contain spoilers. Don't read it unless you've already watched the movie or unless you don't care about being spoiled. I like to analyze movies, and I can't really do that unless I spoil the movie. You have been warned.

Abby Johnson only wanted to help women, so when a woman running a Planned Parenthood booth asked her if she'd be interested in volunteering, she agreed. She became a clinic escort, and her diligence led her to be hired as director of the clinic. Through her work with Planned Parenthood, she was involved in some 22,000 abortions -- but one day, she witnessed something that changed everything.

Unplanned is based on a book written by Abby Johnson, which is basically her autobiography. So the movie is based on a true story. It had a very modest budget of around six million dollars and had several struggles in its making. One of those struggles included having difficulty finding any television or radio stations to advertise for it, based on its controversial nature. So it relied primarily on word-of-mouth and the popularity of Abby Johnson, herself, and made more money in its opening weekend than expected, leading to being shown in more theaters on its second weekend.

The movie is really a mixed bag. It was made by the same people who made the God's Not Dead series, which had better production values than a good number of Christian films, but still were not great films in their own right. Unfortunately Unplanned is not any better as a film, from a production standpoint. But its subject matter is important and makes the film worth seeing. And there are definitely some things about the film which worked. It must be stated that the film is rated R, but with good reason (despite the protests of many pro-life people I've seen so far). It is true that the MPAA rating system seems pretty arbitrary in which films it assigns an R rating, but this film really does deserve it. It's a tu quoque fallacy to argue that because worse films than this receive a PG-13 rating, this film should be PG-13, also. It's rated R for violent/disturbing images, and there are certainly those. It very graphically not only depicts an ultrasound D&E procedure, but it also graphically depicts a chemical abortion (by RU486). This latter scene actually made me nauseous, it was so realistic. There's also a scene in which an abortion was botched and a teenage girl hemorrhages in the recovery room. There are also a few mild profanities, which is surprising coming from a Pure Flix film (two "dammits", one "ass", and a couple instances of "pissed off"). Other than this, there really wasn't any objectionable content in the film. That's mainly the extent of the objectionable content that might turn some people off.

Like I said, the movie is a mixed bag, and there are some good things to commend the film. I'll begin with those.

Good Points

To reiterate, the movie is very realistic about its depiction of abortion, so realistic that I even became nauseous during one scene. So they went all-out in making the abortion procedure as realistic as possible and definitely succeeded. This movie shows the graphic reality of abortion without pulling any punches. Abortion is not an easy thing but is a violent procedure, and even having an abortion chemically can be dangerous and violent for the woman (especially for the child, which is killed in every successful abortion).

Several of the scenes worked on an emotional level. The acting in the film was generally pretty bad, but standout performances were by Robia Scott, who played Cheryl, the woman who gave Abby her job at the clinic, Ashley Bratcher, who played Abby Johnson (though there was a little bit of a disconnect for me since she doesn't look anything like Abby Johnson, so sometimes it was difficult for me to believe her in the role), and Anisa Nyell Johnson in an unnamed role, pleading for her daughter not to abort her grandchild. Scenes like the aforementioned one where a woman pleads for her daughter not to abort her grandchild, the fateful scene in which Abby watches the ultrasound abortion, the scene where Abby has her RU486 in her bathroom, leaving a bloody mess, and the scene where the abortionist has to rush to save a teenage girl from bleeding to death because they won't call 911, are all emotionally impactful scenes that were filmed and acted well.

There are also things you'll learn about the inner workings of Planned Parenthood. This was a major point among most of the people I talked to and read Facebook posts about regarding the film. Many people working for Planned Parenthood really do think they're doing good for women, but many are also pretty terrible. In the film, Cheryl was pretty much a moustache-twirling villain. There was a scene after Abby quits in which Cheryl confronts her outside the clinic in which I actually laughed out loud at how over-the-top she seemed. However, from what I've heard, Abby insists that she actually was like that. So while a villain like this wouldn't be a good thing in a film like this (she was much worse than any of the atheists in God's Not Dead), if this was an accurate portrayal of the person then there wasn't really anything that could be done about it.

Bad Points

Now for the bad points. The bad points have to do primarily with production value. Unplanned is not a well-made film. This doesn't detract from the good points, as like I said, there are several scenes which worked emotionally, and the abortion scenes aren't sugar-coated. But regarding movie structure and other elements, the movie really suffers.

I already mentioned the bad acting. There are a few good performances, but for the most part, the acting is bland. One of the worst offenders is the little girl who played the Johnsons' daughter. At the beginning of the film, she ran out to ask her mom not to leave for work and to stay and play with her, and she was practically smiling while she said it (which didn't seem to be appropriate, given the scene). It's notoriously difficult to find good child actors and when you find a bad one, it can really drag a movie down. I won't belabor the point here or call out any of the other actors for poor performances. I listed the standout performances above.

The movie structure was also bad. It was the wrong creative choice to tell the movie primarily by flashback. The time jumps made the movie feel disjointed and disorganized (I've heard from a few people that it made them feel lost at times). But the biggest issue was starting the film out with the ultrasound abortion that inspired Abby to leave Planned Parenthood. This was bad for a couple of reasons. First, since they glanced over the scene near the end of the film, it really made Abby's decision to leave feel like it was because she was getting in trouble at work, not because of the ultrasound abortion she witnessed. This was a criticism of Abby's story when she first started telling it, that the timeline she gave didn't add up and some of the events of the day didn't seem true. So to film the movie in this way really felt kind of oblivious in the wake of these particular criticisms. The only way you'd know it was the ultrasound that led to Abby's leaving would be if you were already familiar with Abby's story. Second, the ultrasound abortion is the climax of the story -- you don't begin a film or book with the climax. The climax is what everything builds to. Since this was the incident that led to Abby leaving Planned Parenthood and becoming pro-life, it needed to be near the end of the film, with all the other events leading up to it. Having this event at the beginning of the film was a baffling decision, and leads me to wonder if they even test screened the film (though maybe they didn't, since the controversial nature of it meant they had to be pretty secretive in the filming of it).

Another strike against the film was the incessant narration. A little narration is fine for a film to help establish some context that is needed to understand the film. But movies are a visual medium. In a good movie, you show, you don't tell. Telling, rather than showing, is laziness when it comes to a film. If you're going to just have narration throughout the whole thing, you might as well just read the book or find an e-book version of it. The narration would often say things that they should have just shown in the film, and sometimes what was narrated was actually different than what was actually shown on screen. An example that I can remember of this last point was in one of the recovery room scenes. The narrator said that the women were disheveled, in the fetal position, etc., but no one on screen actually appeared that way. It might as well have just been the waiting room.

One last point to mention, which might be considered either good, bad, or perhaps a combination is the way that people are portrayed in this film. The film tried to present a balanced approach, with radical mean pro-life people yelling at women as they walked into the clinic, and nice, caring clinic escorts and Planned Parenthood workers. However, the actual portrayal of these people is a bit dubious. As Jay Watts mentioned in an interview with the Postmodern Realities podcast (episode #117, Unplanned: An Imperfect But Brave Film), the pro-life people who were actually there have said that they never actually acted that way at the clinic when Johnson was working and volunteering there. Additionally, some of my friends who are sidewalk counselors have said that clinic escorts are usually nasty and brutish toward the pro-life peaceful protesters there). So in an effort to be fair and balanced, many of the people may not be accurately represented there.

Conclusion

I have heard this movie has changed some people's minds on the issue of abortion from pro-choice to pro-life. Other pro-choice people have said it only reinforces their pro-choice stance (presumably because they believed the information presented in the film to be false). The movie is likely to change some people's minds who are in the "mushy middle," so to speak, or perhaps even in the "personally pro-life but politically pro-choice" camp. I don't see it changing the minds of hardline pro-choice people. Also, as I mentioned, it's not a well constructed film. But there are several things the film does really well, and if you can overlook the bad production values, there is much you can get out of the film, and that makes the film worth seeing, if you haven't yet. And perhaps take a friend or family member, as they might be more apt to change their mind if they have someone whose opinion they respect see it with them and available to answer any questions they may have.

Grade: C

I give the film overall a C. Despite its bad production values, it has several redeeming qualities. It is still worth seeing for these qualities.

Unplanned
Directed by: Chuck Konzelman, Cary Solomon
Written by: Chuck Konzelman, Cary Solomon
Starring:
Ashley Bratcher as Abby Johnson
Brooks Ryan as Doug Johnson
Robia Scott as Cheryl 
Jared Lotz as Shawn Carney
Emma Elle Roberts as Marilisa Carney
Robin DeMarco as Kathleen
Robert Thomason as Mike
Tina Toner as Renee
Sarah Hernandez as Elena
Maura Corsini as Megan
Lezl Gonzales as Taylor
Kaiser Johnson as Jeff Paradowski
Alexander Kane as Mark
Stacey Bradshaw as Karen
Najah Bradley as Rhonda
Anisa Nyell Johnson as Rhonda's Mom
Lila Rose as News Reporter
Anthony Levatino as Doctor #1

Studio Album Review: Drastic Measures by Kansas

According to the Wikipedia article for Drastic Measures, during Kansas' Vinyl Confessions tour, Christians had been printing lyrics to their songs into religious tracts and handing them out before concerts. This caused Robby Steinhardt to grow even more displeased with the band's new Christian direction, and he left the band after the tour wrapped up. It's worth noting, however, that the article does not source this piece of information, and the liner notes for the CD-reissue say this is a rumor that is going around the internet being presented as fact. Whatever the reason, this was only the beginning of conflicts within the band. Displeased with some of the reviews the band received of Vinyl Confessions being too derivative of the band's earlier material, John Elefante wanted to take the band in an even newer direction that resembled other modern (at the time) bands like Loverboy and Journey. This caused Kerry Livgren to become displeased with the new direction the band took, musically, only contributing three songs to the new album, holding the rest back for his solo projects. John and his brother Dino contributed the rest of the material.

The opening song is Fight Fire With Fire, a blazing rocker using war imagery as a possible analogue for sharing your faith. As Livgren was attempting to be less overt with the evangelistic lyrics this time around it would make sense if there was a double meaning here, although the band certainly has made songs in tribute to America's soldiers before.

Next is Everybody's My Friend, a tongue-in-cheek song about how everyone wants to be your friend when you become famous, wanting to know if you've met other famous people and calling you at all hours of the night.

Third is Mainstream, the first of only three songs penned by Kerry Livgren on the album. The song is a no punches pulled critique of the state of modern American rock music, how it's packaged and sold with very little actual creativity being supported. There's a rumor going around that it has a double meaning of Livgren being frustrated with the more commercial direction Kansas was heading in but in the liner notes of the CD, Elefante says Livgren didn't have it in him to put down his own band, that the song was much more about how the industry was forcing the band to become more commercial. The song does contain a lengthy instrumental section without much of a solo, using various percussion instruments including a moving accompaniment from a marimba. But nothing overtly progressive sounding here.

After that comes Andi, a song that is pretty puzzling on the face of it. If you pay attention to politics at all, you might think this is a song about a transsexual girl who wants to transition to being a boy. But that would be anachronistic, as transsexualism was still uncontroversially considered a mental disorder called gender dysphoria (and it still is today, despite efforts to normalize it). The song is simply about a girl who is a late bloomer, so to speak, and isn't developing as girls her age should. So the other kids mock her for it and the singer is reassuring her that she will be a woman someday. This song is more atmospheric and less guitar-driven than the other material on this album. Of all the material on this and the previous album, this song sounds the most like it was written in the 80s.

Coming up next is Going Through the Motions, a synth-driven song about someone just going through life without doing much living, just "going through the motions", as it were. One could also wonder if this song was eerily prophetic of the band at this time, as Livgren, himself, seemed to believe that Kansas had exhausted itself artistically at this point.

Get Rich is another song about wealth, this time talking about various historical figures of which the prospect of getting rich was a driving force for them, all the while leaving those who didn't benefit from their endeavors to have to scrape around for themselves.

Don't Take Your Love Away is a song that seems to follow the theme of Get Rich. As a rock star singing for a huge rock band, fame and wealth come with the package. Yet the singer is telling God that none of what he has amassed as a rock singer could ever compare to God's love, so he can have it all just so long as he doesn't take his love away from the singer. Musically, the verses have a soft keyboard playing under them which ramps up with drums and heavy guitars during the choruses, as if to underscore the passion with which the singer doesn't want to lose God's love.

End of the Age is the second of Livgren's three songwriting contributions to the album. The song uses apocalyptic imagery to describe the time when "the reign of man" will come to an end. According to Mark Allan Powell in Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music, Livgren would later maintain he was in a songwriting slump at this time and felt that neither this song nor the next deserved to be on the album. That sort of makes sense in a way, as this song does feel like standard Kansas fare, with the organ and bombastic, almost regal, sounding music, which doesn't really fit the lyrics of the end of the age pulled from Revelation. You'd expect something heavier, with more distortion, for a song like this.

The last song on the album is Incident on a Bridge, which ends the album on a peppy note. The song is about divine appointment, that all things happen for a reason, as "life only comes from the one who made it". Looking back on his life, the singer can see all the events that led up to this one encounter, and all the time spent was not wasted.

Perfect Lover was the last song recorded by Kansas with John Elefante as lead singer. It was recorded for a greatest hits collection. The band had already split at this time with only Elefante, Ehart, and Williams left to record the song. So John's brother Dino was brought in to fill out the sound by playing bass and Bryan Duncan (a Christian pop singer) was brought in to supply backing vocals. The song is basically a straight-ahead rocker with no extended musical interludes or solos. The song is essentially about the singer's vision of the ideal lover, someone that everyone keeps telling him doesn't exist but he continues to insist that she's actually real.

Drastic Measures became Kansas' lowest-charting album since their eponymous debut. With nine songs, it's the first Kansas album to have an odd number of tracks, as well as the first to have nine tracks on it. Tensions with the band were at an all-time high and the band ended up disbanding once the tour ended. Livgren and Hope left to form a new band called A.D. According to the liner notes on the CD reissue, after Steinhardt, Livgren, and Hope all left the band, Elefante just didn't feel like it was Kansas anymore. So he ended up forming a band called Mastedon (which I believe was spelled this way on purpose to differentiate from another band called Mastodon that was around at the time), as well as becoming a music producer, producing successful Christian rock acts such as Petra. Before disbanding completely, however, Livgren, Ehart, and Williams stuck around to record a new song for a greatest hits album called The Best of Kansas, which I've included below for the sake of being exhaustive with Kansas' studio material. When The Best of Kansas was re-printed on CD in 1999, Perfect Lover was dropped and three other songs included. So you can't find the song on CD but it has since been made available on a digital-only collection of songs called Wheels and Other Rarities. But Kansas in its current iteration was done. Kansas would resurrect in a few years, however, but returning to its non-religious roots, and many fans believe the spirit of Kansas was carried on in Livgren and Hope's new band, A.D.

Album: Drastic Measures (1983)
Band: Kansas

John Elefante -- vocals & keyboards
Rich Williams -- guitars
Kerry Livgren -- keyboards, guitars
Dave Hope -- bass

Phil Ehart -- drums

Track list:

01. *Fight Fire With Fire (3:40) -- Elefante, Dino Elefante
02. *Everybody's My Friend (4:06) -- Elefante, Dino Elefante
03. Mainstream (6:36) -- Livgren
04. Andi (4:18) -- Elefante
05. Going Through the Motions (5:46) -- Elefante, Dino Elefante
06. Get Rich (3:44) -- Elefante, Dino Elefante
07. Don't Take Your Love Away (3:43) -- Elefante, Dino Elefante
08. End of the Age (4:33) -- Livgren
09. Incident on a Bridge (5:40) -- Livgren

* denotes a single

Album: The Best of Kansas (1984)
Band: Kansas

06. *Perfect Lover (4:19) -- Elefante, Dino Elefante (with bass by Dino Elefante and backing vocals by Bryan Duncan)

* denotes a single

Studio Album Review: Vinyl Confessions by Kansas

The Audio-Visions tour was when Dave Hope gave his life to Christ after Kerry Livgren and Jeff Pollard (while Le Roux was again touring with Kansas) continued to discuss the matter with him. That brought the number of Christians in the band to two. The new songs Livgren brought in for the band were still evangelical, so Steve Walsh quit the band and took his songs with him. This means not only did Kansas need a new lead singer, it also needed someone who could write songs at least of a similar quality to Steve Walsh. The band eventually settled on John Elefante, who had auditioned without even telling them that he was a Christian. Without even trying now, the number of Christians in the band was three, and a fourth, Warren Ham, would join the band on tour playing saxophone, flute, and harmonica. Even though not every member was a Christian, the band had essentially become a Christian band, as the songs were now dealing with topics that would be of interest to many Christians. Walsh can't be faulted for leaving the band over a disagreement in the direction of the lyrics, and the remaining non-Christian members of the band should be commended for playing the songs with as much authority as they ever have (even more than their previous two outings) and for still giving the songs their all, even though they couldn't sign off on the content.

By this point in their career, Kansas was becoming less a progressive rock band and more a power-pop/rock band. The overall theme of Vinyl Confessions has to do with there being a real good and a real evil in the world, and we can't just stay in the middle. We have to choose which path to follow.

The album opens with Play the Game Tonight which, even though the band was now essentially a Christian band, still earned them their third highest placing single on the charts, beaten only by Carry On Wayward Son and Dust in the Wind. This song is the only one on the album (and one of the few in their entire catalog) not to have been written by the band, with the exception of the songs co-written by Dino Elefante, John's brother. As Mark Allen Powell recounts in the Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music, this song was originally called Stay With Me Tonight and was pretty sexually-suggestive, so it was vetoed by the three Christian members of the band (Livgren, Hope, and Elefante). However, they still opted to play the song after changing the lyrics around a bit to move from a sexual one night stand to a musical one night stand. The song is essentially about a band that comes out on stage each night to the roaring of the crowd and plays their hearts out. But even after such a performance, will the audience still remember them tomorrow when the morning comes? This song is a straight ahead rocker with a memorable minor-key piano part under the verses.

Coming up next we have Right Away, a straight-ahead rocker. It's a love song where the singer pleads to the woman of his affections that he needs her to love him right away and not to leave him, remembering all the good times they've shared. For the first song on the album penned by Elefante, it gets the album off to a strong start, as the album is pretty fast-paced from here on out, picking up speed from Play the Game Tonight into Right Away.

Third comes Fair Exchange, a song about a totalitarian society where people are willing to exchange their freedom for safety. Clocking in at five minutes and one second, it's the second longest song on the album. This song is a bit of a heavy rocker and contains a harmonica solo on top of the guitar solo provided by Rich Williams.

Chasing Shadows is next, a tender ballad which asks questions about whether or not the words the singer sings will be heeded by the listener and whether or not they will run from the light, chasing shadows as their legs get tired. This is the only real slow song on the album, being driven by acoustic guitar and soft piano, with a violin solo slightly reminiscent of Dust in the Wind's violin part.

After that comes Diamonds and Pearls, a song about the wealth that comes with success and how riches are ultimately unfulfilling. Only love will last and will not be in vain. This song starts off with a pretty standard Kansas-style intro before moving into bouncier keyboard parts for the verse, providing us with a violin and saxophone solo. Kansas has always been notable for its inclusion of Robby Steinhardt on violin but this album provides some sonic diversity with the inclusion of other instruments, such as a group of horn players called Heart Attack Horns providing some extra instrumentation on this song.

Sixth on the tracklist is Face It, a song that could be about either the singer appealing to his lover that things between them have gotten bad and they can't continue as they are, or a song with a more evangelistic bent about how people need to change their sinful ways and stop "playin' this fool's game". The song starts off with the piano accompanying a violin solo before breaking into a more rock-oriented keyboard-driven song, making this track very reminiscent of Billy Joel's song The Stranger.

Windows is the next song, and offers one of the album's most progressive moments with a violin solo in 5/4 after the second chorus. It's a straight-ahead rocker that doesn't let up from start to finish. It's not exactly very clear what they mean by the "windows of the world", except to say that they're looking through it and these windows are never open all the way. The singer does say seeing is believing but knowing is to get a better view. So perhaps he's simply talking about how one views the world and if one views the world through the lens of faith in God (and Scripture has a lot to say about the world), you'll be able to understand it better than simply by looking at the world from the lens of the world, itself.

Borderline is another straight-ahead rocker that doesn't let up through the whole of the song. This one continues the themes of Diamonds and Pearls, that wealth can never completely satisfy. But this time, the rich man in the song is straddling the fence in the middle. The singer pleads to the man that he can't stay there, he has to make a decision of which way he will go. Until he does, he'll continue to be going nowhere with his life.

Play On is the second-to-last song on the album. It's penned by both Kerry Livgren and John Elefante and is essentially an autobiographical song about why they play music. As Mark Allan Powell mentioned in Encyclopedia of Christian Music, it's almost a worship song to their "Morning Star" who lifts them up, leads them through life, and sets their hearts on fire. Musically, the song starts off relentless (no pun intended) with a powerful drum intro, followed by descending eighth-note triplets in the synth and chords in the piano. The song lets up a bit in the bridge but then kicks back into high gear again for the chorus and guitar solo.

Finally, Crossfire closes out the album. The song is primarily about there being two worlds, a world of darkness and a world of greater love than man has ever known. You're caught in the crossfire between them and have to decide which world you'll be a part of. It's the only song on the entire album which features lead vocals from Robby Steinhardt, and is the only song to even come close to the length of their other progressive numbers. There is a lengthy guitar solo where the band breaks into bars of 6/4 (or perhaps bars of 4/4 with bars of 2/4 between them) for the violin solo.

Audio-Visions really started Kerry Livgren's evangelistic Christian offerings for the band but Vinyl Confessions is evangelistic all the way through. They would tone down this theme of their lyrics for their next album but the Christian nature of the songs would continue to be a source of conflict for the band, leading to Robby Steinhardt quitting and Kansas continuing without a violin for the first time in their career.

Album: Vinyl Confessions (1982)
Band: Kansas

Phil Ehart -- drums
John Elefante -- keyboards, vocals
Dave Hope -- bass
Kerry Livgren -- keyboards, guitars
Robby Steinhardt -- violins, vocals
Rich Williams -- guitars

Track list:

01. *Play the Game Tonight (3:26) -- Livgren, Ehart, Williams, Danny Flower, Rob Frazier
02. *Right Away (4:06) -- Elefante, Dino Elefante
03. Fair Exchange (5:01) -- Livgren
04. *Chasing Shadows (3:20) -- Elefante, Dino Elefante
05. Diamonds and Pearls (4:50) -- Livgren
06. Face It (4:17) -- Elefante, Dino Elefante
07. Windows (3:32) -- Livgren
08. Borderline (4:00) -- Livgren
09. Play On (3:32) -- Livgren, Elefante
10. Crossfire (6:35) -- Livgren

* denotes a single

Studio Album Review: Audio-Visions by Kansas

For their album Monolith, Kerry Livgren had found a counterfeit Jesus in the Jesus of the Urantia Book. Between that album and Audio-Visions, Livgren found the true Jesus of Christianity after debating with Jeff Pollard, the lead vocalist of Le Roux, a band touring with Kansas at the time. And that reality is definitely starting to be reflected in the lyrics of the songs Livgren wrote. Livgren wanted to record a solo album of material presenting a Christian message. Seven of the songs he wrote ended up on his first solo album, Seeds of Change, and four others appeared on this album.

The first song is Relentless, a straight-ahead, upbeat rocker that has a similar form to Carry On Wayward Son, with a guitar-driven intro, then a more piano-driven verse. The song is an autobiographical song about Livgren's conversion to Christianity, which is pretty overt in lyrics such as the second verse, and even an evangelistic appeal in the third verse, stating that the gift is given if you only would receive, and that our lives do not compare to what's awaiting us there (i.e. in heaven).

Next is Anything for You, a mostly piano-driven love song about a man pining for a woman he's fallen for who won't commit to him in return, and no matter how poorly she treats him (e.g. "you tell me lies but I can't let go"), he still wants the relationship to work out because he realizes the way she treats him is a result of some past trauma ("You exist so free and clear/Let no one touch you, let no one near/I think you're just someone afraid of fear/Or what you just might find").

Third up is Hold On, another evangelistic song but this time directed at Kerry's wife, Vicci. It's a guitar-driven song in 6/8 with a wonderful violin melody during the intro and turnarounds. In the song, the Livgren writes that his wife is very close to making the leap into Christianity, and there are certain things in her life that seem to be pointing toward God's existence, so she needs to just hold on because it's closer than she thinks and she's standing on the brink of salvation.

Next is Loner, a blazing rocker written by Steve Walsh that seems to be the antithesis of Anything for You. Loner is a song about how the singer is really a loner at heart, and nothing his lover can do can change that. He feels that he must leave her because of that, and he also believed that she would understand because she knew him.

Curtain of Iron comes up next and is one of only two songs more than five minutes long. The meaning is both literal and figurative. The literal meaning is about the Iron Curtain, a political, military, and ideological barrier erected by the Soviet Union to cut itself off from other noncommunist areas, and from open contact with the West. It was a barrier between freedom and oppression. As Livgren says in his book, Seeds of Change, the symbolic meaning is the spiritual barrier between man and God, with sin acting as a wall of separation between us.

After that comes Got to Rock On, an upbeat rock song that's just about what it sounds like -- the love of music and the desire to keep playing it. It's in a bit of a slower tempo with a rock gallop going on, and for the bridge we are treated to a classical sounding piano part with arpeggios before hitting us with the gallop again for the last chorus.

The next one is Don't Open Your Eyes, a straight-ahead rocker in which the meaning is kind of obscure. It appears to be about a paranoid man who sees danger lurking around every corner, but it's not really clear from the context what is meant by "don't open your eyes too soon 'cause it might be me", especially since at the end of the next verse the singer says "don't open your eyes too soon, it might not be me". This one definitely has an 80's sound to it in the type of keyboard used, something that might have felt at home on a Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack.

No One Together is the last of the Livgren-penned songs on this album. According to the Wikipedia article for this album, it was actually written for inclusion on Monolith, which led to an argument between Livgren and Walsh because Walsh wanted one of his included in that slot for the album. Eventually Walsh won out, the band recording How My Soul Cries Out for You, and eventually recording No One Together for Audio-Visions. It's the second of the two songs to break the five minute mark. It's a fast song which moves into a half-time feel for the bridge. The meaning of the song is about how everything will "come together" only when Christ returns to reign, though it's not exactly made clear by the lyrics. And as the song was written for Monolith, Livgren may have had the Christ of the Urantia Book in mind which he adapted for his newfound Christian beliefs when he got around to recording it.

The second to last song is No Room for a Stranger, a song which seems to be a recurring auditory theme on many of their albums, a gritty rock song with a more mature element to it. In this case, a man's pride has been hurt by his woman, and by her friends who tell him he shouldn't be with her because he's not wealthy. So he thinks about committing suicide or possibly causing her harm if he had more courage and whiskey.

The final song on the album is Back Door, a piano-led ballad about finding the life that you were meant for. This is a song written by Walsh that seems to take a page from Livgren's prior songs about searching and trying to find your place in the universe. This song ends the record on a lighter, more contemplative note.

Like Monolith before it, Audio-Visions would not be remembered as one of Kansas' stronger albums. Livgren and Walsh were both recording solo projects at the time, and one reviewer assumed it was for that reason Kansas became more like a side project for the two, which led to the output suffering. The next two albums would be well known as Kansas' two Christian albums, but I would actually consider Audio-Visions to be Kansas' first Christian rock album (as would Mark Allan Powell, writer of Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music). Walsh tolerated the more Christian-themed songs from Livgren on this album, assuming it was a phase that would pass. But when Livgren came with even more evangelical lyrics for the next album, Walsh decided to leave the band. That makes Audio-Visions the last Kansas album recorded with all the original members intact, with the exception of an album they would record 20 years later (which I'll get to in due time). After Walsh left the band, Kansas had to look for a new lead singer. They would find one, and their meeting would seem almost divinely appointed.

Album: Audio-Visions (1980)
Band: Kansas

Phil Ehart -- drums, percussion, vocals
Dave Hope -- bass, vocals
Kerry Livgren -- guitars, keyboards, percussion, vocals
Robby Steinhardt -- violins, violas, lead vocals
Steve Walsh -- keyboards, vibes, percussion, lead vocals
Rich Williams -- guitars, percussion, vocals

Track list:

01. Relentless (4:57) -- Livgren
02. Anything for You (3:58) -- Walsh
03. *Hold On (3:52) -- Livgren
04. Loner (2:30) -- Walsh
05. Curtain of Iron (6:12) -- Livgren
06. *Got to Rock On (3:19) -- Walsh
07. Don't Open Your Eyes (4:04) -- Walsh, Williams, Livgren, Ehart, & Hope
08. No One Together (6:57) -- Livgren
09. No Room for a Stranger (3:01) -- Williams & Walsh
10. Back Door (4:23) -- Walsh

* denotes a single

Studio Album Review: Monolith by Kansas

Following two smash successes, Kansas would release their sixth studio album, Monolith, a year and a half later which is the longest length of time between releases so far. Between Point of Know Return and Monolith, the band recorded several of their live performances and released the songs on a record called Two for the Show. It's a great recording of an excellent live show with no studio overdubs. If you do want to track it down and give it a listen, look for the 30th anniversary edition which added a second CD of live tracks from the same era. I'll provide a tracklist for Two for the Show at the very end of this review, so you can know which songs are on it.

As far as their studio output is concerned, Kansas sort of settled into a groove that brought more of the same. It's not one of their best albums but it's by no means a bad one. I maintain that Kansas has never recorded a bad album, and just because one is more lackluster compared to albums like Leftoverture and Point of Know Return, that doesn't negate the quality of the album, itself. Kansas released eight quality songs that really sound like they could have been written during the Point of Know Return sessions and simply didn't make the cut. The lyrics on this album were partially inspired by The Urantia Book, which Livgren was devoted to before he converted to Christianity. According to Wikipedia, the word "Urantia" in that religion is the name of the planet Earth and the book intends to "present enlarged concepts and advanced truth." The book aims to unite religion, science, and philosophy, so as Livgren is an intellectual, it sounds like something that's right up his alley. I don't know much beyond that about The Urantia Book, but as Livgren converted to Christianity shortly after, it is evidently incompatible with the Christian faith.

The album starts off with On the Other Side, a song urging his listeners to find the truth (or what he believed to be the truth, at the time), but laments that people will often turn away from it because it's easier to avoid the question, despite knowing where to look and the answers being so simple. Musically, this song starts a more guitar-driven sound for the band that will continue to be utilized in the future. The keyboards and violin are still present and we are still treated to a lengthy instrumental section in an odd time signature.

After that we have People of the South Wind, a song that's more pop-oriented to try and appeal to more people and bring in more fans. The lyrics focus on the Kaw people, for whom the state of Kansas is named. It roughly translates to "people of the south wind". It was also the lead single from the album and earned modest success. According to the Wikipedia entry for this album, Rich Williams once called the song the band's "most pop moment", calling out the happy disco drum beat, whereas their songs were usually deeper, more introspective, and in a minor key.

Third comes Angels Have Fallen, a piano-led song which seems to be talking about someone who doesn't like to show people who he really is and acts differently around them, possibly for fear that they won't like him. It's up to him to search for people who are his "true friends", people who will accept him for who he is and not want him to try to be someone he's not. The lyrics of this song are one that I can definitely relate to.

Coming up next is How My Soul Cries Out for You, a blazing rocker that's simply about a man who realizes he needs his lover as much as she needs him, and his "soul cries out for her". The way they ended this song was kind of different. It mostly fades out, but then it starts to fade back in again, stopping at a much lower volume than the rest of the song, and then it speeds up like you're fast-forwarding a cassette tape, and then it moves on to the next song. It's not that rare for a rock song to fade out, but they kind of played with that a little here on this track.

After that we come to A Glimpse of Home. This is one of the longest tracks on the album but it's basically a straight-ahead rocker, with an extended guitar solo in the middle that never deviates from a 4/4 time signature. The song is about Christ, but the Christ of the Urantia book, not Christianity. Reflecting on it in his book, Seeds of Change, he would remember it as an irony that he thought he had found the answers he was searching for but in reality he still hadn't arrived yet. He found the title prophetic -- he had only attained a glimpse of home whereas finding the true source of joy was still a short ways off.

Coming up next is Away from You, a song that starts off with an organ intro slightly reminiscent of Boston's Foreplay intro to Long Time, before emerging with a fast strummed guitar for the verse and a swing feel for the chorus. This is a song about losing someone you care about and wanting to renew the relationship. He starts off reminiscing that as he looked forward in life when he was younger, he never would have known that "gambling with fate" would cause him to end up alone. But no matter how far he is apart from the one he loves, nothing can take him all the way away from her.

The penultimate song on this album is Stay Out of Trouble, a dirty rock song with chunky guitars reminiscent of their earlier songs Down the Road or Bringing it Back. The song is essentially what it sounds like. It's a song appealing to the protagonist to stay out of trouble. He's someone who has been hurt before and now that pain affects his relationships, or lack thereof, and might get him killed if he's not careful.

Finally, we have Reason to Be, another pop-oriented song with synthesized strings in the background which lends to it being a nicer, calmer track than they're used to playing. This is a song about finding your purpose in life, and once you do, everything else seems to fade away and the rest of your life, like a comedy. In light of A Glimpse of Home, we know that this feeling was temporary as Livgren was still a short time away from finding lasting peace and joy, but he would eventually find it, as would be evidenced by the next album Kansas released.

With eight songs, Monolith certainly isn't the album with the fewest songs on it (Song for America still claims that title, with six songs). In fact, in Kansas' first decade, eight songs was essentially the average number of songs for a Kansas album. Kansas, Masque, Leftoverture, and Monolith all have eight songs. Song for America has the fewest with six, and Point of Know Return has the most with ten. Monolith would close out Kansas' first decade on a less than stellar note, but still, after recording and releasing so many albums in such short succession, every album can't necessarily be a winner. Monolith is not a bad album by any stretch of the imagination, but definitely won't be one of the albums you return to first if you want to refresh yourself with their output from the 70's. A few months after this album was released, Kerry Livgren would find the Jesus of Christianity, and bassist Dave Hope would follow. Their next album would be where Livgren's newfound faith would start to appear in his music.

Album: Monolith (1979)
Band: Kansas

Phil Ehart -- drums
Dave Hope -- bass
Kerry Livgren -- guitars, keyboards
Robby Steinhardt -- violin, lead and backing vocals, anvil
Steve Walsh -- keyboards, lead and backing vocals
Rich Williams -- guitars

Track list:

01. On the Other Side (6:24) -- Livgren
02. *People of the South Wind (3:39) -- Livgren
03. Angels Have Fallen (6:37) -- Walsh (backing vocals by The O.K. Chorale)
04. How My Soul Cries Out for You (5:41) -- Walsh
05. A Glimpse of Home (6:34) -- Livgren
06. Away from You (4:23) -- Walsh
07. Stay Out of Trouble (4:12) -- Walsh, Steinhardt, Williams
08. *Reason to Be (3:51) -- Livgren

* denotes a single

Live Album: Two for the Show (1978)
Band: Kansas

Phil Ehart -- percussion
Dave Hope -- bass
Kerry Livgren -- keyboards & guitars
Robby Steinhardt -- violin and vocals
Steve Walsh -- vocals and keyboards
Rich Williams -- guitars

Track list:

Disc 1 (original version)

01. Song for America (from Song for America)
02. Point of Know Return (from Point of Know Return)
03. Paradox (from Point of Know Return)
04. Icarus -- Borne on Wings of Steel (from Masque)
05. Portrait (He Knew) (from Point of Know Return)
06. Carry on Wayward Son (from Leftoverture)
07. Journey from Mariabronn (from Kansas)
08. Dust in the Wind, ~acoustic guitar solo~ (from Point of Know Return)
09. *Lonely Wind, ~piano solo~ (from Kansas)
10. Mysteries and Mayhem (from Masque)
11. Excerpt from Lamplight Symphony (from Song for America)
12. The Wall (from Leftoverture)
13. Magnum Opus (from Leftoverture)

Disc 2 (30th anniversary re-release)

01. Hopelessly Human (from Point of Know Return)
02. Child of Innocence (from Masque)
03. Belexes (from Kansas)
04. Cheyenne Anthem (from Leftoverture)
05. Lonely Street (from Song for America)
06. Miracles Out of Nowhere (from Leftoverture)
07. ~drum solo~, The Spider (from Point of Know Return)
08. Closet Chronicles (from Point of Know Return)
09. Down the Road (from Song for America)
10. Sparks of the Tempest (from Point of Know Return)
11. Bringing it Back (from Kansas)

* denotes a single

Studio Album Review: Point of Know Return by Kansas

Point of Know Return was the follow-up to Leftoverture and released just the next year. Steve Walsh had gotten over his writer's block and contributed to more of the writing on this album. Just about everyone knows their song Carry On Wayward Son. But this album contains the two other songs that even non-fans will be familiar with. Everyone knows Dust in the Wind (it's even become fairly popular in pop culture), and to a lesser extent, the opening title track of the album, Point of Know Return. Point of Know Return is a play on "point of no return". Like Leftoverture, it is a tongue-in-cheek album title, though the album's songs are more serious than the album title might let on. At 10 songs, it's also the album with the largest number of songs so far. Even so, I would say there's not a bad song in the bunch.

The album starts off with Point of Know Return, a strong opener that begins with the entire band full-bore. The cover art for the album is a ship falling off the edge of the earth (which is sort of a myth that people used to believe this; even in the time of the ancient Greeks, it was widely accepted the earth is spherical. In fact, Eratosthenes was able to accurately calculate the circumference of the earth over 2,000 years ago). The song plays into this theme, being about a sailing crew and all the dangers associated with sailing the ocean including the possible danger of sailing off the edge of the world and passing the "point of no return" to where you won't be able to turn back. According to the liner notes of the remastered edition, there was no real reason the band spelled the title "know" instead of "no". It was simply at the suggestion of their manager, Budd Carr. The band thought it was funny and would mess with people's minds.

Next is Paradox, a song that keeps up the momentum established by Point of Know Return with a blazing organ intro. The song itself returns to the familiar Kansas theme of searching, a paradox being a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well-founded or true. This song explores the paradox of having "seen it all", and yet believing there must be more. Of course, Livgren's conversion was still a couple of years away, but this is reminiscent of C.S. Lewis' well-known argument from desire, that since all natural desires have fulfillments, if we have a desire which nothing in this world can satisfy, it follows we were made for another world. Livgren seems to have found the fulfillment of that desire now.

Coming up third we have The Spider, a short instrumental tune. It's really more of a keyboard feature between Walsh and Livgren, with changing time signatures and virtuosic playing. The piece is in constant movement, evoking mental images of a spider moving around on its eight legs, movement which has always been kind of creepy to many people, myself included.

After that, we have Portrait (He Knew), a song written about Albert Einstein. The song is not just about how brilliant Einstein was, but the fact that his intellect had reached a higher plane than anyone else's, a true visionary who could see into the future. After Livgren became a Christian and Kansas split up for the first time in the 80s, Livgren would go on to form another band called AD. In 1988, for that band's Prime Mover album, Livgren updated this song and called it Portrait II, adapting the words to be about Christ.

Next is Closet Chronicles, the first of only two songs on the album to run over five minutes. The song in an allegory of Howard Hughes, an aviator, manufacturer, and movie producer. The song makes allusions to certain facts about his life, such as the singer gazing out the window of the 42nd floor, a reference to the Las Vegas Desert Inn hotel he purchased, and the fact he was a reclusive loner. The music for this song sounds a lot more regal than the other tracks, and is the most progressive-sounding track on the album so far, with the possible exception of The Spider.

The sixth song on the album is Lightning's Hand. This is more of a deep cut, but at least in 2001 for their Device-Voice-Drum live DVD, they performed a portion of it combined with Belexes (from their first album). This song probably rocks the hardest on this album, including a chaotic solo from the electric guitar and synth to reference the chaotic nature of lightning. Lightning's Hand is about the destructive power of lightning and an entity, possibly Thor, who is able to control it. It would make sense for the song to be about Thor, as Thor is a Norse god and the Norse vikings were sailing men who explored other areas by sea. So not only do we have the destructive power of lightning after the dangers of the ocean, but we also have sailing men who fear this god as they respect the ocean.

Now we arrive at Dust in the Wind, probably the most well-known Kansas song. It's driven by acoustic guitar and features a violin solo by Steinhardt after the second verse and chorus. The song was originally written by Kerry Livgren as a picking exercise to learn fingerpicking on the guitar, but his wife liked the melody so much she encouraged Livgren to write lyrics for it and take it to the band. They accepted it and it was recorded on the album. The lyrics were inspired by Livgren's reading of Indian poetry and convey a sense of the emptiness of life, how humans are insignificant considering the surrounding universe and the fact that we live only a brief time compared to "the earth and sky".

Sparks of the Tempest comes in next. This one is another heavy rocker, being driven by crunchy electric guitar. This is a song about totalitarianism, broadly, or communism, more narrowly. It was written after Livgren read George Orwell's 1984, which you can tell from such lines as "Big Brother is watching and he likes what he sees/A world for the taking when he's ready to squeeze". Other lines, such as "they mold you and shape you", and "the less that you know the more you fall into place" evoke their warning about communism.

Nobody's Home comes in as the penultimate song, and the music is kind of deceiving. The music fits the theme of the song but the lyrics are probably the most progressive-y lyrics Livgren has written, as progressive rock songs usually contain science fiction lyrics. This song is about a friendly extraterrestrial who visits earth, only to find mankind extinct because of being devastated by nuclear war. So literally "nobody's home". I say the music is kind of deceptive because in songs with a science fiction theme, you usually expect a lot of weird synth sound effects and things like that, but this one is basically a straight ahead dirge for mankind from the perspective of this extraterrestrial, complete with piano in the high register to underscore the somber third verse: "No requiem was ever sung, no elegy was read/No monument was carved in stone in memory of the dead".

The last song on the album is Hopelessly Human, the longest song on the album which closes the album with a fantastic progressive rock tune. The meaning of this one is obscure. He talks about the "brainstorm of youth" being a strange aberration. Perhaps the meaning of the song is now that he's older, reflecting upon his youth has helped him to see things that he couldn't see now that he's older without taking that into account.

Point of Know Return is an excellent album, from start to finish. With Leftoverture, it was one of their best-selling albums which didn't focus so much on familiar lyrical territory and instead had a bit more lyrical diversity, even finding inspiration in real life people.

Album: Point of Know Return (1977)
Band: Kansas

Phil Ehart -- drums, chimes, chain-driven gong, timpani, percussion
Dave Hope -- bass, autogyro
Kerry Livgren -- electric and acoustic guitars, piano, clavinet, synthesizers, Rinaldo whistling machine, percussion
Robby Steinhardt -- violin, viola, Faucen lap cello, vocals
Steve Walsh -- organ, piano, celeste, vibes, Peabody chromatic inverter, synthesizers, vocals, percussion
Rich Williams -- electric and acoustic guitars, Benis bow pedal

Track list:

01. *Point of Know Return (3:11) --Walsh, Ehart, Steinhardt
02. Paradox (3:51) -- Livgren, Walsh
03. The Spider (2:05) -- Walsh
04. *Portrait (He Knew) (4:37) -- Livgren, Walsh
05. Closet Chronicles (6:30) -- Walsh, Livgren
06. Lightning's Hand (4:24) -- Walsh, Livgren
07. *Dust in the Wind (3:26) -- Livgren
08. Sparks of the Tempest (4:15) -- Livgren, Walsh
09. Nobody's Home (4:40) -- Livgren, Walsh
10. Hopelessly Human (7:08) -- Livgren

* denotes a single

Studio Album Review: Leftoverture by Kansas

Leftoverture is one of the greatest rock albums ever recorded. The band really struck gold when they recorded and released it. At this time, Steve Walsh was having writer's block, so the album is largely a Livgren-penned affair, with Walsh co-writing three of the eight songs (with the rest of the band also receiving songwriting credits on the last song). This album continues many of the themes from Masque but offers a more hopeful outlook than that album did.

The first song is the Kansas song everyone knows. Carry On Wayward Son is just a great all-around rock song. On Masque, the band tried to write a hit song that was in one time signature all the way through. Ironically, the band got their first legitimate hit with this song, which alternates between sections in 4/4 and sections in 12/8. Considering how great a song this is, one might be tempted just to think it was just that: a great rock tune. Some have even speculated this song is about the prodigal son from the Bible. This interpretation is unlikely, as Livgren's conversion was still a few years away. However, if we consider Kansas' output in context, the song is rife with symbolism and becomes easier to understand. Livgren wrote Carry On as a sequel to The Pinnacle, so the song picks up where The Pinnacle left off. The first verse of Carry On begins, "Once I rose above the noise and confusion". The Pinnacle ended with "I stood where no man goes, above the din I rose/Life is amusing though we are losing/Drowned in tears of awe". "Din" means "a loud, confused noise". So Carry On is continuing where The Pinnacle finished by showing what happened after he rose above the din. Carry On could be seen as the third part in a trilogy: Mysteries and Mayhem, The Pinnacle, Carry On Wayward Son. Additionally, Carry On seems to continue some of the imagery from Masque, where Walsh sings "I was soaring ever higher, but I flew too high", which could be an allusion to the myth of Icarus, which Livgren used to great effect for a song on the Masque album. So Livgren may still be contemplating death but this time with an added air of hope: "Carry on my wayward son/There'll be peace when you are done", and explaining that "now your life's no longer empty/Surely heaven waits for you".

Next up, we have The Wall, which continues the theme of hope regarding one's inability to escape death and see what waits ahead. The wall is a barrier that the protagonist has erected within himself and prevents him from obtaining peace and happiness. He knows he has to tear it down, so what's keeping him from doing so? In Seeds of Change, Livgren says he believes The Wall and The Pinnacle to be the best lyrics he's ever written (and it's hard to disagree with him). He says the wall was in him, and he didn't have the power to remove this barrier that was keeping him from the joy and harmony he desperately desired.

Third we have What's On My Mind. This one is a straight ahead rocker, and the lyrics are pretty much just a love song about how the relationship he's in has been mutually beneficial: she's made him a better man and they open each other's minds. Writing another love song was undoubtedly due to their label's constant pressure to be more commercially viable as a band, but this song is better than either of the two love songs on Masque. Musically, there's not a whole lot to talk about.

After that we have an absolute masterpiece of a song, Miracles Out of Nowhere. Of all the songs Kansas has ever written, The Pinnacle and Miracles Out of Nowhere are definitely in my top five. This is one of my very favorite songs they've ever done. They return to the overall theme of the album in this one, Livgren's search for spiritual truth. Each verse catches a different phenomenon, the beauty of the dawn, the ravings of a lunatic or visionary, and finally Livgren's sense of futility in his created work. Each phenomenon raises existential questions he struggles to find answers to. This is one of Kansas' more complex songs, including a lengthy instrumental interlude after the second chorus where the band moves into playing a fugue in 7/4 time where the synthesizer, electric guitar, and violin all get a chance to shine, and once the drums come in, the fugue continues but with more time signature changes, which could symbolize Livgren's confusion and the turmoil in his mind.

Fifth, we have Opus Insert. An opus is a composition by a particular composer (so in a work of classical music, if it says, for example, "Op. 16," that would be either the 16th piece that composer composed or perhaps the 16th piece cataloged by the person or organization grouping the music together). So I'm a little puzzled by the name "opus insert". I might guess it's a tongue-in-cheek reference to throwing in a song that is usually considered "filler" because they have an obligation to their label as per their contract. The problem with this theory, however, is that Opus Insert is a good song, certainly not filler, and even considered a classic by some. The solo in this song sounds a bit circus-y, with marching drums by Ehart and Walsh alternating between vibraphone and piano. Lyrically, this song fits the theme of searching that Livgren was well-known for, albeit a bit more optimistic than the material on Masque.

Coming up next we have Questions of My Childhood, a straight-ahead rocker from start to finish but moves to a half-time feel for the bridge. In this one, Livgren reflects on the questions he had as a child and how he hasn't yet found the answers. He believes the answers are out there and the journey will be made easier and more meaningful if he has a companion to share the journey with.

The penultimate song is Cheyenne Anthem. Cheyenne, of course, is a Native American tribe. The song here returns to the themes of Death of Mother Nature Suite and Song for America. In this case, Livgren takes on the voice of a Cheyenne and reflects how they think of nature, that it's not owned by anyone so we ought to share it peacefully. It goes even further, though, to talk about the Indians being attacked and moved by white settlers. The song is primarily a slower song, led by guitar, until the solo starts and it kicks into high gear, before slowing back down for the final verse.

Last we have Magnum Opus, Kansas' first instrumental piece. The piece is in six movements. The second movement has lyrics but the rest is purely instrumental. "Magnum opus" means a large and important work of art, usually used to express the most important work of an artist's career. Maybe the title was meant to express that this was one of their more ambitious works, having to rely primarily on the music to express the meaning. It clocks in at around eight and a half minutes long, so with five movements each one is pretty short.

Leftoverture (a portmanteau of "leftover" and "overture") was Kansas' first big hit as a band, primarily on the strength of Carry On Wayward Son, although this is definitely their best album so far in terms of overall quality of the music. There's another song that is very well-known, even by non-fans, which appears on the next album, another strong one from this band.

Album: Leftoverture (1976)
Band: Kansas

Phil Ehart -- drums, percussion
Dave Hope -- bass guitar
Kerry Livgren -- electric guitar, piano, clavinet, moog, Oberheim, and ARP synthesizers
Robby Steinhardt -- violin, viola, lead and backing vocals
Steve Walsh -- organ, piano, additional synthesizers, vibraphone, lead and backing vocals
Rich Williams -- electric and acoustic guitars

Track list:

1. *Carry On Wayward Son (5:23) -- Livgren
2. The Wall (4:48) -- Livgren, Walsh
3. *What's On My Mind (3:29) -- Livgren
4. Miracles Out of Nowhere (6:27) -- Livgren
5. Opus Insert (4:26) -- Livgren
6. Questions of My Childhood (3:37) -- Walsh, Livgren
7. Cheyenne Anthem (6:53) -- Livgren (Toye LaRocca and Cheryl Norman, children's voices)
8. Magnum Opus (8:26) -- Livgren, Walsh, Williams, Hope, Ehart, Steinhardt
     a. Father Padilla Meets the Perfect Gnat
     b. Howling at the Moon
     c. Man Overboard
     d. Industry on Parade
     e. Release the Beavers
     f. Gnat Attack

* denotes a single

Studio Album Review: Masque by Kansas

Kansas' third album, Masque, was released in the same year as Song for America, which is almost unheard of today. It was their third album in roughly a year and a half, but as the liner notes of Song for America (remastered) says, this was a particularly prolific time for Kerry Livgren as a songwriter.

The first song on the album is It Takes a Woman's Love (to Make a Man). This song is an upbeat opener but not a very strong start to the album. The band can't be faulted -- the reason for the song was their label was on them for a hit single, so this was their attempt to write one for their label: something that was "a little shorter than 12 minutes" that you could tap your feet to and was in the same time signature from beginning to end. Needless to say, it didn't become a hit. The song is just a basic love song about how a man isn't complete without the love of a woman. There's nothing really remarkable about the song. True to Kansas' nature, the great songs are the longer ones.

Up next, we have Two Cents' Worth. The lyrical content of this album tends to be much darker than on the previous albums, dealing with things like death and the inability to find meaning from life (which may have ultimately helped lead to Livgren's later conversion to Christianity). This particular song is upbeat and catchy (certainly better than the first track) and yet the singer talks about how he's been drinking because the seeming emptiness of life has gotten him down. He even seems to bring the listener into his discussion because in the last verse Walsh agrees we may think that he's wrong and he wishes he could see things our way.

Third comes Icarus (Borne on Wings of Steel). Like Song for America, this is another one of Kansas' signature songs that they still play live today. This song uses the myth of Icarus as an allegory. Icarus was given wings of feathers that were affixed to his body with wax. He was warned not to fly too close to the sun, yet his sense of freedom while he flew caused him to disregard this warning. He flew too close to the sun, the wax melted, and Icarus fell to his death. In this case, "borne on wings of steel" could likely refer to an airplane, and how flying gives a pilot a sense of freedom as he's able to leave the earth. If he lost the wings, the pilot would surely die just as without that sense of freedom Livgren would die, or he would at least feel lost. This song is one of the lengthier songs on this album and has some great musical moments, one of my favorites being the electric guitar adding a distorted melodic counterpoint to the violin, which is playing a descending eighth note figure. Kansas uses the string instruments, including one not usually found in rock bands, to great effect.

Coming up next we have All the World, which is, for the most part, a piano ballad similar to Lonely Wind from Kansas, except in this song the piano occasionally drops out for some heavier guitar or synth to take over. The end of the song has a rare a cappella section. There is also one musical misstep, in my opinion, which is incredibly rare on a Kansas recording. At the end before they move into the a cappella outro, rather than simply have Livgren stop the synth, they actually just fade it out in the mix and it sounds jarring. I wish they would have simply had Livgren stop playing altogether before coming having Walsh come back in with the vocals. But it's a relatively small nitpick in an otherwise strong ballad that breaks into a 7/4 instrumental section which is led by the synth, with brief periods of 3/4 between each musical phrase, leading the synth up to a new set of notes to play while the band plays a new progression of chords. As for the lyrics, it's the most optimistic song on the album. It's basically a petition to humanity to stop living selfishly and to live lives that forgive each other, leaving despair and loneliness behind.

After that we have Child of Innocence, another signature song that still gets played today. This one is primarily a straight-ahead rocker. This song returns to the theme of death and its inescapable reality. The "child of innocence" tends to think that it happens to others and not himself, but the subject of the song, the grim reaper (as is made obvious by lines such as "still you try to flee my blade", a reference to the scythe that the reaper is often imagined to carry), sings this song to the "child of innocence" to tell him to be prepared because he will die one day, too. It's something that happens to everyone and there's no escape.

The next song is It's You, which is another short love song. Listening to this song paired with the first one on this album, you start to realize why Kansas should avoid writing love songs. It's clearly not their forte. This is by far the weakest song on the album, and is trite and cliche, lyrically (e.g. rhyming "Oh, it's you" with "Oh, I'm blue", and other trite lines like "I need you 'cause my life's turning grey"). Definitely one to skip unless you can tolerate it for its short length. It's probably the shortest song ever written by Kansas that wasn't an instrumental.

Mysteries and Mayhem comes up next. This song is about a nightmare the protagonist has regarding a hooded figure in black calling his name, which likely represents death (based on the themes represented throughout this album as a whole). He tries to run from this figure but can't, his legs seemingly much heavier than they usually are (as if they're made of lead). This song is pretty much a straight-ahead rocker with a musical break during the middle which is driven by the distorted electric guitar.

The Pinnacle is the final song, and Mysteries and Mayhem leads right into it. Mysteries and Mayhem allows the song to fade, and then The Pinnacle starts with the same melody that Mysteries and Mayhem ended with, which indicates that they probably envisioned it as the second part of the prior song. I don't know if it was just a limitation of the recording equipment where they couldn't connect the two songs and split it into two tracks or if it was intentional, but based on the same melody, plus the lyric near the end of the prior song, "Mysteries and mayhem from the pinnacle I see", it's pretty strongly implied that The Pinnacle picks up where Mysteries and Mayhem left off. Plus, in both songs, the protagonist sings about bearing "the mark of Cain", which is a Biblical reference to the mark Cain received after murdering his brother, Abel, which God gave to him as an act of mercy, a sign showing that whoever would kill Cain, vengeance would be taken upon that person sevenfold. Most of the songs on this album are great, but of all the songs, this is my absolute favorite. It continues the theme of death, and even the sense of frustration that Livgren felt in his search for religious truth, which he thought unattainable. In his book Seeds of Change, Livgren says he was moving from one philosophy to another and none filled the emptiness he felt. The "jester's promenade" he mentions in the song refers to the "promenade of human religions and philosophies," which started to seem like some insipid joke. This song is very complex musically, and gives almost a sort of medieval feeling, using imagery you usually see in fantasy stories of "the hero" who "breaks his blade" in "conquer[ing] demon foes" while standing "where no goes". It clocks in at almost 10 minutes long but is a marvelous composition from start to finish, and the glorious ending of the song gives me goosebumps every time.

The success of this album, and Kansas' first two albums, was most definitely due to the success of their next two albums. Once the next album was released to the public, the lead single became a smash hit and even fans of rock music who weren't necessarily musicians became enamored of this band.

Album: Masque (1975)
Band: Kansas

Phil Ehart -- drums, moog drum, assorted percussion
Dave Hope -- bass guitar
Kerry Livgren -- lead and rhythm guitar, acoustic guitar, piano, clavinet, moog and ARP synthesizers
Robby Steinhardt -- violin and vocals
Steve Walsh -- organ, piano, clavinet, moog synthesizer, congas, and vocals
Rich Williams -- lead and rhythm guitar

Track list:

1. *It Takes a Woman's Love (to Make a Man) (3:09) -- Walsh (saxophone by Lon Price)
2. Two Cents' Worth (3:09) -- Livgren, Walsh
3. Icarus (Borne on Wings of Steel) (6:02) -- Livgren
4. All the World (7:12) -- Walsh, Steinhardt
5. Child of Innocence (4:34) -- Livgren
6. It's You (2:33) -- Walsh
7. Mysteries and Mayhem (4:18) -- Walsh, Livgren
8. The Pinnacle (9:34) -- Livgren

* denotes a single

Studio Album Review: Song for America by Kansas

Kansas's second album, Song for America, was recorded and released not long after their first. They had to make a living with their music, so songs for the second album were essentially written on the road. The songs on this album are also a lot more polished than the songs from the first, which was, for the most part, a lot more raw because the songs were each recorded in one take.

The album starts off with Down the Road, a song in the same vein as Can I Tell You, a blazing straight-ahead rocker. This is a song about a man who tries to get rich quick but ends up getting involved with the wrong crowd. Now he wants to "get out of town" without being killed by a loan shark. It's a real fun song despite the somewhat heavy lyrics. Near the middle of the song the band erupts into a sort of hoedown-esque solo, with the violin playing more of a fiddle style and some folks clapping their hands while Robby Steinhardt's hands fly across the violin. This is by far the shortest song on the album.

Next we come to Song for America. The topic of the song is just as the title suggests: it's an ode to America. The liner notes of the remastered edition mentions that Livgren wrote the song while he was in an airplane, looking down at the country and musing over "our relatively young nation and how unique we are." Before the song finishes, however, it returns to the themes established in the Death of Mother Nature Suite and laments the damage that humans have done to this majestic land. At just over 10 minutes long, this song isn't even the longest on the record. The music is just as majestic as you expect a song about the beauty and grandeur of America to be. This was also the only single on the album and they really took a meat cleaver to it. They condensed a 10 minute song down to just three minutes. It's more egregious than the radio single version of Meat Loaf's I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That). To anyone familiar with the full album version, the radio edit is pretty jarring. Just about everyone knows Carry On Wayward Son, but Song for America was really Kansas' first signature song.

After that we have Lamplight Symphony. As great as Song for America is, this is probably my favorite song on the album. It tells a tale of an old man whose wife recently died. He pines away for her, wishing he could bring her back. But suddenly the ghost of his wife appears to comfort him and tell him that one day soon they'll be reunited. This song is more mystical than the previous one and the music is more mystical to match, with sustained strings and organ to add an air of mystery to the verses, and a portion where the bass leads the movement of the song to express the fearful wonder of seeing his dead wife appear. Then the music fades as the apparition does, leaving him alone to ponder the message his wife brought.

Coming up next we have Lonely Street, a bluesy song in 11/8 time, which moves to 12/8 for the choruses. The lyrics are a bit heavier than even Down the Road. In this case, the protagonist is a man who walks up and down a street, looking for a man who robbed and raped his girlfriend/wife, and the shady characters he meets on his journey. The verses being in 11/8 is pretty unique. I don't listen to enough blues to know if there are other songs in this time signature, but it definitely adds a bit of interest to the song.

The second-to-last song is The Devil Game. They raise allusions to the Christian concept of the devil, referring to him as Lucifer and Satan, which are some of his names in Christianity. But as to whether or not they are referring to the literal devil is anyone's guess. It could simply be a song warning against being bad, because those who live an evil life will fall in the end. This is another raucous rocker that isn't extremely lengthy but still clocks in at over five minutes long.

Finally, we have Incomudro-Hymn to the Atman. A hymn is a song, usually religions, that expresses adoration to something or someone. "Atman" is a term in Hinduism which essentially refers to the immortal soul. I haven't been able to find a meaning for "incomudro", so perhaps it is a word that Livgren made up while coming up with a title for this song. In his autobiography Seeds of Change, Livgren says this song sums up the syncretistic approach he took to religion, combining elements of Hinduism with Zen Buddhism. This is Kansas' longest track they've ever recorded. A couple of noteworthy things: First, Phil Ehart has a drum solo near the middle of the song, and during a violin solo, the song takes on a "waltzy" feel, where the song is played in a feel of one large beat per measure, but instead of being in 3/4, as waltzes usually are, this was in 4/4 but played as if in one beat per minute. Non-musicians probably won't care much about that but I thought it was pretty interesting.

This album, as a whole, sounds better than their first, which was a lot more rushed although still excellently performed. Despite how great this album is, it would still be a couple more albums before they found worldwide fame. But with this album, they really solidified their staying power.

Album: Song for America (1975)
Band: Kansas

Phil Ehart -- drums, glockenspiel, moog drum, gong
Dave Hope -- bass guitar
Kerry Livgren -- lead and rhythm guitars, piano, ARP and moog synthesizers, ARP strings
Robby Steinhardt -- lead vocal, vocals, violin
Steve Walsh -- organ, piano, scat and lead vocals, ARP and moog synthesizers
Rich Williams -- acoustic and electric guitars, lead and rhythm guitars

Track list:

1. Down the Road (3:44) -- Walsh, Livgren (handclaps by Food Alright and the Wines)
2. *Song for America (10:03) -- Livgren
3. Lamplight Symphony (8:14) -- Livgren
4. Lonely Street (5:43) -- Walsh, Hope, Williams, Ehart
5. The Devil Game (5:04) -- Walsh, Hope
6. Incomudro-Hymn to the Atman (12:13) -- Livgren

* denotes a single

Studio Album Review: Kansas by Kansas

Kansas is the eponymous debut album by progressive hard rock band Kansas. To record their first album, this iteration of Kansas was brought together from two separate projects: Kerry Livgren, from an earlier iteration of Kansas, and White Clover, a rock and blues band. The material on the album is a combination of material from both groups. You'll notice a lack of love songs. Early on, the band told Rolling Stone that they avoided writing love songs because everything that can be said about love has already been said. Of course, they would relax this rule on later albums.

The album starts with Can I Tell You, a short blazing rocker about freedom and making sure you appreciate it when you have it. According to the liner notes on the remastered album, this was the song that got the label interested in signing the band. There's only one verse in this song. It's sung three times with a lengthy instrumental section between the second and third verses. It sets the mood of what you can expect from Kansas: while their songs usually contain lyrics, and these lyrics are often intellectual and sometimes mystical, it's the music and the musicality of the band that really sets them apart. Even though unusual in a hard rock band, the violin is certainly not an afterthought. It carries the music through most of the instrumental before the guitar and organ trade solos, backed by a great rhythm section in Dave Hope and Phil Ehart, the latter being probably the most underrated drummer in rock music.

Next we hear Bringing it Back, a cover of a song by J.J. Cale about a man in jail reminiscing about getting caught bringing drugs back across the border from Mexico. Kansas really puts their own spin on it, playing the song a lot faster than the original. I had no idea it was a cover until recently, it sounds so much like they could have written it. Steve Walsh's piano playing really shines on this song.

After that we get Lonely Wind, a piano ballad written by Steve Walsh. It's a nice song, and the violin just soars in the intro and the solo. The meaning of this song has always been kind of obscure to me. Most of the interpretations I found on-line are that this is a song about a man who goes out into nature to commune with God. This doesn't sound plausible as the band is well known in its early incarnation for exploring various religious faiths, especially eastern religions, although the song does contain the lyric "Sometimes he seems to be the only one beside me/Who can feel the Lord's breath all around him", so who knows? Maybe it's correct. They wouldn't become a Christian band until the early 80's and Steve Walsh left the band after Livgren's and Hope's conversion because their lyrics had become too Christian. Another interpretation I found took a more literal approach: the protagonist is a man without friends who finds comfort in the wind as his only companion. As for me, I've always thought about it as a man who has been unable to find love but can find solace in the arms of a friend, which can make the pain of loneliness more bearable. At any rate, it's a nice ballad but I wouldn't consider it among the best songs on the album.

Next up is Belexes, a song that is inspired by the pseudo-Asian sound of Giacomo Puccini's Turandot, an opera about an Asian man who wants to marry a princess, but must answer three riddles on pain of beheading if he answers incorrectly. As far as I can tell, it's inspired by the music, not the story. Livgren was fond of making up words for the titles of his songs, and this is one such example. Belexes doesn't mean anything, it's just a word that came to him when he was thinking of a title (according to his book, Seeds of Change). The meaning of the lyrics seems a little obscure, but it appears, at its heart, to be a song about making sure you make wise decisions. Despite what others may say about your future, it's ultimately up to you to choose how best to proceed. After bringing it down a bit with Lonely Wind, Belexes kicks it back into high gear with a general swing feel at a fast pace.

After this we get Journey from Mariabronn, a song inspired by Herman Hesse's novel Narcissus and Goldmund, a story of a man, Goldmund, who is at a Catholic monastery and forms a close bond with his teacher, Narcissus. Goldmund meets a Gypsy woman who seduces him, causing him to decide he was never meant to be a monk. So he searches Germany in search of the meaning of life. The book appears to be heavily influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche's theory of the Apollonian and Dionysian spirit, as well as Jung's union of polar opposites. I have not read this book myself, but you can read the synopsis and explication of the general themes at the Wikipedia page. As for the musicality, this is one of the most progressive songs on the album. Just the key signatures, alone, are varied, moving from 10/4, to 7/8, to 6/8, to 4/4, and others. Despite how fast the song is, it still clocks in at almost eight minutes long.

The Pilgrimage comes next, another song with a swing feel though it's even more bluesy than Belexes was. There are even some elements of southern rock you can hear from the violin during the solo. The guitar gets a chance to shine during the solo, and the keyboard is evident throughout the verses and turnarounds. It's not clear from the lyrics what kind of pilgrimage Kansas is singing about, but considering how great the musicians are, you're happy just to be taking the journey.

The penultimate song is Apercu, a word which may be unfamiliar to you (as it was to me), but it simply means "an immediate impression", or "insight". Again, the insight the song is talking about is not very clear from the lyrics, but then again the vision that the protagonist is seeking is still hazy and concealed by "the mists of time", so perhaps the listener is meant to be as in the dark as the protagonist. It is worth noting, however, that one reviewer I found said the song is about reincarnation (e.g. talking about how we've "done this all before"). This is a song that shifts from quiet and introspective during the verses to big and bombastic during the choruses. All of the instruments are heard clearly throughout the song. Kansas is not the kind of band to just feature one instrument but often has very complex arrangements that requires extraordinary skill from each player. That's no more evident than on this song and Journey to Mariabronn.

Apercu leads right into Death of Mother Nature Suite, a song that outright condemns humanity's destruction of the environment set to an eight minute rock epic. This one has more esoteric elements than the others, incorporating a lengthy violin solo over sustained organ and wailing from the vocalists. The song is definitely a strong closer, if a bit heavy-handed in its message.

Overall, Kansas is an excellent debut album from a band that would become world-famous but would also have its ups and downs. This album, like all of Kansas' albums, is worth checking out. To fans of classical music like me, there's a lot to love from Kansas' progressive output. And for fans of hard rock (also like me), there's much to love in their more straight ahead rock offerings.

Album: Kansas (1974)
Band: Kansas

Phil Ehart -- drums
Dave Hope -- bass guitar, vocals
Kerry Livgren -- Lead and rhythm guitar, piano, organ, moog synthesizer, vocals
Robby Steinhardt -- violin, lead vocals and harmony
Steve Walsh -- organ, piano, congas, lead vocals and harmony
Rich Williams -- guitar

Track list:

1. *Can I Tell You (3:32) -- Williams, Walsh, Ehart, Hope
2. *Bringing it Back (3:32) -- J.J. Cale
3. Lonely Wind (4:17) -- Walsh (additional harmony by Jay Siegel of The Tokens)
4. Belexes (4:24) -- Livgren
5. Journey from Mariabronn (7:56) -- Livgren, Walsh
6. The Pilgrimage (3:43) -- Livgren, Walsh
7. Apercu (9:36) -- Livgren, Walsh
8. Death of Mother Nature Suite (7:53) -- Livgren

* denotes a single