Retro Reviews: Neil Young: On The Beach

    I decided to launch a new series to imagine myself as a critic at the end of the 60s and start of the 70s, and to rectify certain reviews from Rolling Stone magazine and Creem. This not meant to be contrarian, but to offer a more balanced perspective. All the albums reviewed are indeed classic albums.

Neil Young – On The Beach (1974)

****

Producers: Neil Young, David Briggs, Mark Harman, Al Schmitt

Musicians: Neil Young, Ben Keith, Rusty Kenshaw, David Crosby, George Whitsel, Graham Nash, Tim Drummond, Billy Talbot, Rick Danko, Ralph Molina, Levon Helm, Joe Yankee

Songs: Walk On, See the Sky About To Rain, Revolution Blues, For The Turnstiles, Vampire Blues, On The Beach, Motion Pictures, Ambulance Blues

Reviewed By Matthew Anthony Allair

    Neil’s new album, coming off the heels of live Time Fades Away and the soundtrack to Journey Through The Past, is a fascinating picture of a musician reacting to a number of troubling issues. This album in essence is a blues record, not ‘blues’ in the sense of the conventions and cliches of that genre, but in spirit. The momentum for Young after joining Crosby, Stills and Nash for Déjà vu, the success of After The Gold Rush, and Harvest, and put Young in an interesting position. It sounds like the passing of a peer like Danny Whitten must have had an impact on him, no one can say. Yet Young had been around to see the passing of Brian Jones in 69, then Hendrix, Morrison and Joplin a year later, but to be directly affected by the passing of an associate due to addiction, may impact differently. Yet the album may also be a reaction to industry pressures, Buffalo Springfield had a certain rate of success - there’s little doubt - but Young was able to navigate through it all with less pressure. But fame has it’s price, there’s the cost of indulgence or expectation, and the new album reflects a loss of innocence. Joni Mitchell went through her own loss of innocence from 69-71, but that was more gentile. This loss feels harder and it’s reflected in the music.

    When you consider such lines from “On The Beach” as “I Need a crowd of people, but I can’t face them day to day, though my problems are meaningless, that won’t make them go away’. It seems like Neil realizes he has become trapped, and aside of whatever demons he is facing, he is taking stock and wanted to break out of a box. This album mirrors the eclecticism of Gold Rush or Harvest, but with a much bleaker tone. The opener, the outstanding “Walk On” features the crazy horse team of Talbot, Keith and Molina, as well as the classic vocal sound, but it acts as a defiant statement, perhaps a reaction to the two prior releases, the public perception or his band mates death 

    The electric piano of Neil on “See the Sky About To Rain” as well as the electric dobro give it a country pop sheen, but there’s a restless, unsettled and sad quality to it. Keith dobro work and Levon Helms drums offer tasteful support. The paranoia of “Revolution Blues” has Neil channeling a trace of Dylan, with Crosby on guitar and Helm offering support. The haunting “For The Turnstiles” has Young on Banjo, and Kieth on Dobro, where Young has a vulnerable and haunted tone to his vocal – it sounds desolate. “Vampire Blues” has almost dark, satirical quality in it, and country blues with Keith on Organ. It could be about our exploitation of the Earth, or the predatory nature of addiction. Neil sounds weary here.  

    That disillusionment and weariness is heightened further on side two with the title track. Graham Nash plays the electric piano while Neil offers up some of his classic reverb guitar leads, while it has a slight Spanish feel, the track reinforces the album’s blues motif. “Motion Picture’s (For Carrie)” has a lovely, sad chord progression with some country twang, even the harmonica can’t mask the feeling the narrator is broken. The album closer “Ambulance Blues” begins as a folk lament, a slippery fiddle counterpoints the Harmonica, Some of the lines reinforce the comments of “Walk On” – ‘So all you critics sit alone, you’re no better than me from what you’ve shown, with your stomach pump and your hook and ladder dreams, we could Get together for some scenes’. It’s all relative, does criticism even matter when dealing with life (or death), in the end it’s Neil’s life he has to live, not to just meet expectations of strangers. 

    This may be a polarizing record and may not be for everyone, but it is also thematically consistent with his prior work. Mr. Young has not stumbled yet since 1969, outside platitudes won’t save someone from their demons, I think Neil sees this now, his salad days are long gone now. I will be curious to see where the journey takes him next.