CD Odyssey Disc 579: Neil Young

My apologies for the delay in getting this next review out.  The holidays are supposed to be relaxing, but it was hard to find time to listen to this next album in the way the Odyssey demands (i.e. without other distraction).

Disc 579 is…. On the Beach

Artist: Neil Young

Year of Release: 1974

What’s up with the Cover? A lot is going on in this little beach scene.  A car mostly buried in the sand beneath a picnic table, while off in the distance Neil stares out to sea, no doubt wondering just what strange events could result in such an accident.  He has his boots off, but his clothes on, seemingly unable to decide between going for a swim or returning to the shade of the patio table to finish reading the newspaper (which features the great headline “SEN BUCKLEY CALLS FOR NIXON TO RESIGN”).

How I Came To Know It:  I already owned a lot of Young’s seventies albums, but had never heard of “On the Beach,” which was apparently not available on CD for many years.  I bought it on a flier, hoping it would be good based on the year it was released.

How It Stacks Up:  I have 15 Neil Young albums, with plans to get at least another six.  Of the 15 I have, “On the Beach” is way up there – I’ll put it third.

Rating:  4 stars but very close to 5

Because of its lack of availability, “On the Beach” was lost to mists of time for many years.  People my age were too young to be aware of it when it came out in 1974 and as for those who are older, some know and appreciate it, but it was far from being a commercial blockbuster like its predecessor, 1972’s “Harvest.”  So what to make of this obscure record that fell into “Harvest’s” shadow?

First off, it is a lot more bluesy.  “On the Beach” still has folk-rock elements but it also has a laid back blues groove that is propelled by Young’s deeply underappreciated guitar playing.  In a world where many guitar gods are rightly worshipped (Knopfler, Hendrix, May), Neil Young falls into the category of those that are wrongly overlooked. Here Young has a style that sways its way through a song like a river winding through a flood plain; wide, slow and deep and knowing just where and when to turn to stay on course.

“On the Beach” showcases this guitar work better than many of his other albums.  It never falls into noodling, but instead tastefully adds flavour to the melody where there’s room. The title track is particularly beautiful for this, with picking that is deep and deliberate, and leaves lots of space between notes.

The opening song “Walk On” goes for a more direct guitar riff to deliver an up-tempo message of ‘live and let live’ that I appreciate.  In the song’s opening lines Neil describes it this way:

I hear some people been talkin' me down,

Bring up my name, pass it 'round.

They don't mention happy times

They do their thing, I'll do mine.

Ooh baby, that's hard to change

I can't tell them how to feel.

Some get stoned, some get strange,

But sooner or later it all gets real.

However, to see this album as a collection of hippy anthems would be to sell it short. “On the Beach” has incredible range. “See the Sky About to Rain” is on the surface a gentle pastoral folk song about a storm rolling in over an open plain, a train in the distance.  Neil muses about the lives of those people on the train, but it is the weather that is the song’s protagonist.  The music perfectly matches that feeling of a rain cloud passing over, with opening piano feeling like the first drops hitting the ground, and the other instruments joining in as the rain gathers in intensity.

“Revolution Blues” is a paranoid vision of a family who live on the outskirts of town, so fearful of government that they begin to fear their own neighbours.  The song rocks with a nervous but controlled energy and in Young’s hands, the subject becomes a broader painting of that lack of trust in the modern world. 

The next two tracks are a stripped down banjo-driven number (“For the Turnstile”) and a Delta blues indictment of oil development (“Vampire Blues”). In both cases, Young manages to comment politically while keeping the songs deeply personal and intimate.

“Side Two” (as they used to say in 1974) follows that seventies tradition of offering up longer, more laid-back songs as opposed to short, radio-friendly fare.  The aforementioned title track is joined by “Motion Pictures” and “Ambulance Blues” to deliver a trilogy of relaxed, introspective songs.  On “Motion Pictures”, amidst a quite guitar strum and some wistful harmonica Neil sing about starting over:

“All those headlines they just bore me now.

I’m deep inside myself but I’ll get out somehow.”

Hearing this made me feel like I was sitting on the beach myself, and in no hurry to get up and see what is in that newspaper I discarded under the patio table.

Taken as a whole, the album is like the cover, a tension between the political and the personal that is united under Neil Young’s steady hand.

Best tracks:   Walk On, See the Sky About to Rain, Revolution Blues, For the Turnstiles, Motion Pictures, Ambulance Blues