Review Summary: Neil Young at his bleakest and most bitter
I’m not one to do track by track reviews, but On the Beach to me has an emotional arc that lends it to being discussed in order. This is a very well sequenced record, one where each songs seems to build on the previous one and it really does make sense for the songs to exist in the order that they do. It was a smart move to pick “Walk On”’, the record’s most outright cathartic moment, as the opener. The song is triumphant in a bittersweet sort of way, exuding an “I’m not gonna let them get me down” kind of swagger. Had it been kept until later it could have served as some sort of release or emotional payoff for the heavier moments on the album, but instead it is used it to build us up before bringing us down. It feels like a moment of confidence and optimism despite the odds that comes to fade away as the album progresses, as moments like that often do in life. “See The Sky About To Rain” (a highlight of the record for me) continues this, it’s a sad song but its melody is one of Young’s sweetest, albeit in a wistful sort of way. It’s warm electric piano chords and slide guitar recall the last rays of sun on a summer day more than storm clouds, bringing to mind the feeling of, well, seeing the sky about to rain. I can’t move forward without taking a second to single out how great the electric piano on this song sounds, it has such a lovely tone and it suits the bleary eyed melancholy of the song well. “Revolution Blues” comes next and moves things forward with defiance; the song may be uptempo but the mood is turning sour. Young sounds paranoid and cynical, rambling about “bloody fountains” and owning “twenty five rifles just to keep the population down”, and whilst the song is energetic it sounds more tightly wound than rockin’. Carried mostly by terse clips of rhythm guitar with the occasional bit of tasty blues soloing, it pulls that classic Neil Young rocker trick of maintaining tension instead of releasing it.
See the placement of those first three songs is important, as it stops the album from being a drab listen by starting us off with some energy. Moreover, they add to the emotional weight of the album as a whole by injecting it with life and colour before draining that life back out as the record progresses. Life, after all, is all about ups and downs. You can’t have sadness without moments of happiness, there is no disillusionment without hope and there is no loss without having. This is key to the power of the sadness that On the Beach explores; more of a lack of happiness or hope than outright misery. Make no mistake, the songs on side B of this record are bleak, depressing and absolutely guaranteed party killers. But there’s nothing theatrical or bombastic about the sadness here, there isn’t a lot in the way of catharsis or burst-out-in-tears moments. Rather it’s music for staring out into nothingness as you let the tears roll slowly down your cheek. The songs on side B capture feelings of helplessness, jadedness, yearning for the past and the fading of the hope that things can or will get better. These are complicated emotions, and not particularly dramatic ones. They are however very real emotions, and they are explored in ways that are very emotionally resonant here.
Allegedly Neil Young and his band were eating a lot of what was essentially weed infused honey throughout the recording sessions for the record, and that kind of comes across in the sound of songs like the title track, which projects hopelessness through a sort of stoned apathy. The song feels like sitting and watching the world happen, allowing it to pass you by, too exhausted and broken to do anything about it. Each time the verse climbs to that C Major 7 Young seems to break, embracing the free fall of despair (“All my pictures are falling, from the wall where I placed them yesterday”, “Though my problems are meaningless, that don’t make them go away”) or desperately grasping for some sort of escape from his state of numbness (“Now I’m living out here on the beach, but those seagulls are still out of reach”, “I follow the road though I don’t know where it ends”) before returning to a state of apathy and defeat. It’s worth noting that while the lyrics are the focal point of side B (and indeed the whole record) the arrangements still do a lot to create that sense of isolation that really makes the lyrics resonate. So much sadness is conveyed through the guitar solos in the title track alone; listen to the loneliness in the way the note is bent at 3:07, or the angriness in the way the guitar snaps back round at 3:22. Listen to the way the note is held and allowed to linger at 6:32, like a spectre fading away into the mist.
On the Beach ends with “Ambulance Blues”, its starkest, bleakest moment and possibly my favourite Neil Young song. I know I said that this isn’t necessarily a knee jerk emotional reaction sort of album but I tear up every time I hear the opening seconds of this song. The acoustic guitar part is just so achingly sad that I already have that sinking feeling before the lyrics even enter the picture. The song is about the fading of the hippie dream and the death of the optimism of the 60s, but at its heart its themes are more universal, capturing nostalgia for moments lost in time through sepia toned vignettes about waitresses crying in the rain, broken homes and empty city centers. The lyrics come in the form of sketches, observing seemingly inconsequential details, but the song draws great weight from it’s snapshots of life and hangs heavy with a tremendous sense of loss. The triviality of the lyrics makes them feel real and personal, as does the way Young sings them, sounding haunted and alone with nothing but his acoustic guitar to keep him company in the boundless vacuum of time. There’s a real bitterness to the way he sings the line “You’re all just pissing in the wind” that catches me with a lump in my throat every time; a real anguish when he wails “She needs someone that she can scream at” and a real sense of regret when he follows it with “And I’m such a heel, for making her feel so bad”. The song feels vast, even more so than its almost ten minute run time would suggest. It’s one of those songs that could just go for ever, its mournful strings and harmonica wailing on like waves rising from an ocean of sadness.
I’d love to leave things there (honestly “Ambulance Blues” alone would be enough to make this a good record) but unfortunately I do have a few minor niggles. Whilst it may start and end well On the Beach kind of lacks a substantial middle section to bridge its two acts. “For The Turnstiles” is a good enough song with some really nice sounding banjo and dobro but it doesn’t really add a whole lot to the record. “Vampire Blues” on the other hand doesn’t add anything; it isn’t a bad song so much as a completely meh one with no real reason to exist. The lyrical content (vampires as a metaphor for oil companies) has nothing to do with the rest of the album and isn’t particularly strong, and musically it has nothing going for it except maybe some cool guitars. Not cool enough to carry an entire song though! Sorry guys. So yeah, the album does lose its direction a little in the middle.
This doesn’t, however, dampen how emotionally resonant the rest of the album is. It’s a poignant and human exploration of depression, and manages to be so without being either melodramatic or, you know, just a total drag. One for cigarettes alone on a rainy day, or standing on the beach staring out at the sea and thinking about life and stuff. That’s right you can listen to it on the beach! See what I did there? Just pick a day when it isn’t too sunny.
8.5
