Neil Young
On The Beach
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NATN Recommended
Neil Young
On The Beach
Reprise, 1974
RiYL: Scouring used vinyl shops and bootleg CD stores |
For those who haven't heard Neil Young's On The Beach, I should probably give a little background. This is one of this artist's most perplexing and satisfying works (and that's really saying something). It's a "mood" album, a mellow ride filled with strange lyrics and equally odd grooves. It's almost hypnotic in its own lazy way. I feel like I enter a trance once I get beyond the first song. And yet every time I listen, I'm not quite able to attach any definitive meaning to its songs or the mood they create. It's not sadness or madness or any exact combination of emotions. There's no formula at work here and so it's difficult to even understand why the music is so enjoyable.
I checked the back of the movie box at Virgin, thinking it might instantly explain something I'd been pondering for years. Of course, it didn't explain a damn thing. It said the film was a cold war drama about how human beings cope after the nuclear apocalypse -- a plot that really doesn't really have any formal connection to Neil's On The Beach. But it did somehow add yet another strange shade of gray to the dark murky picture I have in my head of the album's meaning.
Allow me to explain?
On The Beach was made in Southern California in 1974. A couple of the songs were recorded out at Neil's ranch, but most of the material here was concocted in Los Angeles in a pro studio filled with a fantastic assortment of random, drunk all-stars of the L.A. scene. Rick Danko and Levon Helm of the Band were there, as were Neil regulars Ralph Molina, Ben Keith, and Tim Drummond. And of course the omnipresent David Crosby dropped by for some recording.
But the weirdest one in the bunch -- and the one largely responsible for this album's laid-back feel -- was a guitarist named Rusty Kershaw. Described by one biographer as "a big, hairy swamp rat, in bib overalls," Kershaw forced others in the group (including Neil) to record under his conditions. That mostly meant smoking copious amounts of marijuana and practicing a song as little as possible before committing it to celluloid.
Neil had recently survived a series of personal tragedies, including the deaths of his Crazy Horse bandmate Danny Whitten and roadie Bruce Berry. To make times more trying, Neil was now watching his relationship with actress Carrie Snodgress slowly slip away. Just as the rest of the country was enduring national disenchantment in the wake of the Watergate scandal, Neil was clearly going through his own period of unchecked disillusionment. In no small way, he was figuring out how to cope after an emotional apocalypse.
The most important thing to note, though, is not all the depressing events of the artist's life around this time, but rather that he was learning to cope with them. Most of Beach finds him floating in this soup of negative energy with a sort of complacent glow to him. He isn't drunk and depressed like he is on Tonight's The Night. He's STONED and depressed. An important distinction, you understand. He's not cool with the cloud hanging over him, but he's learning to deal. Of course he sounds bitter and downtrodden for much of the album, but he also manages to sound suprisingly upbeat on more than one occasion.
Listening to the uptempo opening track, "Walk On," you can immediately hear what I am talking about. He's not wallowing in his bad luck but instead just waiting patiently for it to end. The critics and the phony scene obviously bug him but he's willing to just move past them. This sort of quasi-positive attitude appears briefly througout the rest of the album. It's there in the slide guitar solo of "See The Sky About To Rain," and in the dark, drunken, yet very funny lyrics of "Vampire Blues," where he jokes, "Good times are coming, but they sure are coming slow."
Moving deeper into the album, Neil starts to sound like he wants you to believe he doesn't give a shit, even though you can tell he does. It's not unlike the spirit of the musicians who would populate the stereos of slacker teenagers two decades later. You can almost hear him whispering, "Oh well, whatever, nevermind." He's pouting a little. But he sounds cool and he's got a valid reasons to be pouting. So you suck it up and dive down in the dumps with him.
Once you're down there with him, he starts to let his frustrations out in a more alarming fashion. His anger is manifest in nearly every song, but it comes out differently each time, sometimes three different ways in the same tune. On "Revolution Blues," for example, Neil jumps into the body of a Charles Manson-like figure and unleashes his angst with a stream of scary images:
"I got the revolution blues," he sings. "I see bloody fountains. And 10 million dune buggies comin' down the mountains. Well, I hear that Laurel Canyon is full of famous stars. But I hate them worse than lepers and I'll kill them in their cars."
On the next song, "For The Turnstiles," he's calmed down, singing in a whine, and sounding like an old codger who has seen bad times come and go. He's telling you to toughen up, giving you the old, "what won't kill you" speech.
"Though your confidence may be shattered, It doesn't matter," he says. And you just nod your head along easily with the pluck of the two guitars, knowing he's right.
On the album's last song, "Ambulance Blues," he takes a stab at the same critics he blew off in "Walk On" in one verse and then takes on Richard Nixon (or so I believe) three verses later:
I never knew a man who could tell so many lies. He had a different story for every set of eyes. How can he remember who he's talking to? Because I know it isn't me and I hope it isn't you.
The spellbinding second half of the record is where Neil's stew of dark emotions reaches full boil. The aforementioned "Ambulance Blues" is a nine-minute barrage of seemingly unconnected images presented with minimalistic guitar and violin backing. When Neil reaches for his harmonica, it sounds more like he's breathing through the brass rather than playing it. Between these musical breaths, he's offering listeners a bizarre stream of conciousness:
I guess I'll call it sickness gone It's hard to say the meaning of this song. An ambulance can only go so fast. It's easy to get buried in the past. When you try to make a good thing last.
The singer's thoughts are connected only in a stream-of-concious sense. But while the words don't necessarily make a lot of sense, they someone leave a listener with a very tangible feeling. And this strange, distinct aftertaste is what makes the long trip worth the effort.
Probably the most straightforward song on the album is the title track. It's here, "On The Beach," where one gets the best view at the innerworkings of Neil's mind. Nearly every line drips with honesty and blatant self-examination -- a real rarity for this artist.
"Though my problems are meaningless that don't make them go away," he sings just before clearing his throat. "I need a crowd of people but I can't face them day to day."
He ends the song, thinking he'll "just get out of town." Fitting words for a man who spent nearly his entire career abandoning bands and projects the moment anything went wrong. But despite his immature coping skills and dickhead modus operandi, this song somehow makes you care for the guy. And so you listen to the entire album over and over again, trying to think about what makes all the violent mood swings and nonesense lyrics and blatant self-loathing sound so warm and inviting.
Occasionally you might take another look at the odd cover, hoping it will answer some of the questions the music raises. It shows Neil standing on a beach, staring at the ocean, with his back turned to you, dressed in a yellow jacket with a yellow lawn chair beside him. And a yellow car buried in the sand behind him. Beside a couple more yellow lawn chairs and a table with a big yellow umbrella overhead. In the sand, you notice there's a newspaper with the headline, "Senator Buckley Calls For Nixon To Resign." And you look back over at Neil wondering whether he's thinking about Nixon or the buried car or the birds. Maybe he's pondering something else, something more personal. And then you listen to the album again and you ponder some more, alongside him.
Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat.
Now, for any of you out there interested in getting a copy of On The Beach, I've got some bad news. You see, this album was never released on CD and copies of the original album are few and hard to find. Whether it's Neil's disdain for digital presentation of his art or whether it's effort to keep a personal work available only to his most dedicated fans, I don't know. What I do know is that it's annoying as hell. I used to own a copy of the original vinyl but it just got too beat up -- I've always had a hard time taking care of my music. A couple of years ago I bought one of those German bootleg versions -- with the crackling vinyl sound burned on to CD.
Some fans think it's really cool that they get access to this music, while other, "less worthy," listeners are kept in the dark. It's like some sort of reward to them or something. A reward for what, I really don't know.
Personally it depresses the hell out of me. I can't just meet someone randomly at a bar, end up in a huge Neil discussion, and then suggest they check it out. Hell, I can't even tell my closest friends to go buy it or make them a clean-sounding copy. In essence, I am unable to share the music easily. And for me, sharing has always been the most important part of music.
In many ways, this album is about isolation. Neil's alone on the beach, both on the cover and in the songs. And so the concept of musical isolation works on some level. On The Beach is a complete excercise in loneliness and confusion. A never-ending journey to the center of its own meaning. And that alone should make you want to start your hunt in the great bootleg centers of this universe. I wish you good luck in finding it.
BEN FRENCH | Ben founded NATN in the winter of 1998-1999 with fellow IU alums Troy Carpenter and Jonathan Cohen. During the day time, he's working for Nielsen Business Media, publisher of Billboard. Ben's favorite acts include Bruce Springsteen, The Clash, Sonic Youth, Elvis Costello, Talking Heads, Rolling Stones, and the Beach Boys.