On the Beach (1974)

On the Beach is the fifth studio album by Canadian-American musician Neil Young, released by Reprise Records in July 1974. It is the second of the so-called "Ditch Trilogy" that Young recorded following the massive success of 1972's Harvest, and expresses feelings of over-exposure, alienation and melancholy.

Background

Looking back on the album for the liner notes to the Decade box set, Young wrote of "Heart of Gold": "This song put me in the middle of the road. Traveling there soon became a bore, so I headed for the ditch. A rougher ride but I saw more interesting people there." Recorded after (but released before) Tonight's the Night, On the Beach shares some of that album's bleakness and crude production — which came as a shock to fans and critics alike, as this was the long-awaited studio follow-up to the commercially and critically successful Harvest. It hinted towards a more subtle outlook, particularly on the opening track, "Walk On".

As happened with Tonight's the Night, On the Beach under-performed commercially but went on to attain high regard from fans and critics alike. Both albums were recorded in a haphazard manner, with a variety of session musicians often changing their instruments while Young offered basic arrangements for them to follow. He chose rough, monitor mixes of songs rather than a more polished sound, alienating his sound engineers in the process. Throughout the recording process, Young and his colleagues consumed a homemade concoction dubbed "honey slides", a goop of sauteed marijuana and honey that "felt like heroin", at the behest of session musician and de facto producer Rusty Kershaw. This may account for the mellow mood of the album, particularly on its second half.

While the original Rolling Stone review described On the Beach as "one of the most despairing albums of the decade", later critics, including Allmusic's William Ruhlmann, used the benefit of hindsight to conclude that Young was in fact "saying goodbye to despair, not being overwhelmed by it". Neil Young concluded: "Good album. One side of it particularly — the side with 'Ambulance Blues', 'Motion Pictures' and 'On the Beach'. It's out there. It's a great take."

Writing

On the Beach is a folk rock album exploring themes of anger, alienation, and cautious optimism. "Walk On", the album's opener, has Young combining his melancholy outlook with a wish to move on and keep living. In the liner notes to Decade, Young describes the song as: "My over defensive reaction to criticisms of Tonight's The Night and the seemingly endless flow of money coming from you people out there." The social commentary "See the Sky About to Rain" dates from Harvest. It had been covered by the Byrds a year earlier on their eponymous reunion album.

"Revolution Blues" was inspired by the criminal cult leader Charles Manson, whom Young had met when he lived in Topanga Canyon, about six months before the Tate–LaBianca murders. In a 1985 interview, Young said they had met through the musician Dennis Wilson, and that Manson had wanted him to introduce him to the record executive Mo Ostin to help him record music. Young said: "Musically I thought he was very unique. I thought he really had something crazy, something great. He was like a living poet... But I think he was very frustrated in not being able to get it, and he blamed somebody." Young's bandmates objected to playing "Revolution Blues" live. Young said: "It's just a fuckin' song. What's the big deal? It's about culture. It's about what's really happening."

"For the Turnstiles" is a country-folk hybrid featuring Young's banjo guitar and a harmony vocal from Ben Keith, who also played dobro. The lyrics critique the music industry, with Young later stating in the Decade liner notes: "If statues could speak and Casey was still at bat, some promoter somewhere would be making deals with Ticketron right now." The side closes with "Vampire Blues", a cynical attack on the oil industry, and side two opens with "On the Beach", a slow, bluesy meditation on the downsides of fame.

"Motion Pictures" is an elegy for Young's relationship with actress Carrie Snodgress, which was falling apart. Young remembers in Waging Heavy Peace: "We were all high on honey slides... A couple of spoonfuls of that and you would be laid-back into the middle of next week. The record was slow and dreamy, kind of underwater without bubbles." The song was written in a Los Angeles hotel room while watching TV. Kershaw described the song's genesis: "We didn't work every day, we only worked when we felt really inspired. Me and Ben and Neil were sittin' in Ben's room. Neil started hummin' somethin', and I started playin' along with the melody on the steel. Ben started playin' bass, it sounded so goddamn pretty. Neil picked up a pen and just wrote the words right then and put that motherfucker down while it was still smeared all over us."