All the money won’t another minute buy.
Dust in the wind. All we are is dust in the wind.
Kansas’ “Dust in the Wind” is a departure from the rest of Kansas’ catalog, but this is easily their best song. “Dust in the Wind” has to be the leading candidate for most depressing song of all time: if there were such an award. The acoustic guitar riff along with the vocals and powerful message combine to create one of the most powerful songs of the seventies.
The guitar picking is a standard Travis-style finger-picking pattern, but this combination of chord progressions accentuates the guitar work and the music from the guitar. We hear how sad the song sounds—apart from the lyrics. Once the lyrics come in…boom. This song is not subtle in its message. People are really nothing in the greater scheme of the universe, they’re really only dust in the wind.
Everything that seems so important to you; from the perspective of eternity it really is nothing. This can be both very depressing, but this realization can have the opposite effect as well. Understanding that I am a small piece of a large, infinite world can make my everyday problems seem not worth worrying about. It sounds Taoist or Buddhist.
“Dust in the Wind’s” melody combined with the chord progressions really makes for a beautiful—though haunting—song. Not many songs ask us to consider our own mortality. It is a bit experimental and a bit of a risk for a mainstream band like Kansas to put it out, but it remains their most well-known song. It is also a great song to learn on guitar when you are first starting.
Dust in the Wind Lyrics
I close my eyes,
Only for a moment, and the moment’s gone.
All my dreams,
Pass before my eyes, a curiosity.
Dust in the wind.
All they are is dust in the wind.
Same old song,
Just a drop of water in an endless sea.
All we do-
Crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see.
Dust in the wind.
All we are is dust in the wind.
Oh, ho, ho
Now, don’t hang on,
Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky.
It slips away,
And all your money won’t another minute buy.
Dust in the wind,
All we are is dust in the wind.
All we are is dust in the wind.
Dust in the wind,
Everything is dust in the wind.
Everything is dust in the wind.
The wind.
written by Kerry Livgren of Kansas