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
2 comments:
This review made me want to seek this out. Thanks.
I used to have this album on vinyl... when it first came out. So funny to revisit it. Violet.
PS, don't know what happened to it, only that I don't own any vinyl anymore. They take up a lot of room.
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