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"On the Beach" is Neil Young's masterpiece: the work in which the threads of his aesthetics magically converge, through an astonishing sonic alchemy.
Released at a crucial point in the life of the Loner: mid-70s. The long wave of Woodstock, the country-rock bonfire of "Harvest," the oceanic crowds during tours with Crosby, Stills, and Nash. But the dark side of that era is quick to emerge. The failures of politics, rock crystallizing in opulent canyons, drugs flowing everywhere like a raging river, the inability to find in private life a "shelter from the storm," to quote Dylan from the same period. All of this contributes to forming the Great Chill: when you realize things were not exactly as imagined, and illusions fade into the shadow line of adulthood. The ultimate rock and roll trope, the sturm und drang of the twentieth century.
Not everyone gets over this trauma. Some, of course, continue the pantomime, and get on stage despite having nothing left to say. The more sensitive ones fade away with the last dose or through a gunshot: perhaps citing in their farewell message a line from the Canadian (it's better to burn out than to fade away), like Kurt Cobain. Others reflect on their role when on the brink of the precipice, and emerge thanks to Art.
Neil Young finds himself alone on the beach of vanished mirages and disillusionment. Accompanying him are a cosmic sadness, a newspaper headline on Watergate, a Cadillac buried in the sand. The remorse for the heroin deaths of friends Danny Whitten and Bruce Berry and the specter of the failed relationship with Carrie Snoodgress ("too often, when I got home, I'd hug the guitar instead of her," he would later say) offer no respite. He had already commercially committed suicide with "Time Fades Away" in 1973. He had already plunged into the abyss of alcohol and despair recording the cathartic "Tonight's the Night". And in these eight songs, he finally faces his demons.
Stylistically, the album showcases Young at his best. Surrounded from time to time by spectacular musicians (from Levon Helm to Rusty Kershaw), "On the Beach" eludes the classic dichotomy of our hero's albums, between dreamy country-folk and feedback stretched to the extreme. The tone of the album masterfully varies from shadowy to visionary, anchored to a devastating underlying melancholy. The impetus of "Walk On" opens the dance masterfully, while Neil expresses his spite towards critics who want to embalm him as a beautiful statue in Nashville. "See the Sky About to Rain" mellows the atmosphere, dissolving into the Wurlitzer piano. Young's beach materializes as if by magic, amid ethereal flourishes and pure poetry.
But it is with the third track, "Revolution Blues", that the album enters its heart of darkness. One of the most controversial tracks in the entire history of rock: dedicated to Charles Manson, well before he became an icon, via Trent Reznor. A Young nauseated by what America had become in the early 70s, including its pompous rock stars and the Counterculture, reinvents himself as more psychotic and depraved than Iggy Pop, following for a day the ambiguous revolutionary proclamations of the Bel Air slaughterer, the scapegoat chosen by the system to sink hippie dreams in the famous "Helter Skelter" theory. The track is simply perfect: the Band's rhythm section provides a monstrous funky groove, David Crosby on rhythm guitar supports a Neil intent on crafting precise and devastating solos like cuts without resorting to feedback. His voice incites hate and violence, crafting a simply apocalyptic picture. Lyrics like "Well I hear that Laurel Canyon is full of famous stars But I hate them worse than lepers and I'll kill them in
Tracklist Lyrics and Samples
04 For the Turnstiles (03:15)
All the sailors with their seasick mamas
Hear the sirens on the shore,
Singin' songs for pimps with tailors
Who charge ten dollars at the door.
You can really learn a lot that way
It will change you in the middle of the day.
Though your confidence may be shattered,
It doesn't matter.
All the great explorers
Are now in granite laid, (in Granite Lake?)
Under white sheets for the great unveiling
At the big parade.
You can really learn a lot that way
It will change you in the middle of the day.
Though your confidence may be shattered,
It doesn't matter.
All the bushleague batters
Are left to die on the diamond.
In the stands the home crowd scatters
For the turnstiles,
For the turnstiles,
For the turnstiles.
06 On the Beach (06:59)
The world is turnin', I hope it don't turn away,
The world is turnin', I hope it don't turn away.
All my pictures are fallin' from the wall where I placed them yesterday.
The world is turnin', I hope it don't turn away.
I need a crowd of people, but I can't face them day to day,
I need a crowd of people, but I can't face them day to day.
Though my problems are meaningless, that don't make them go away.
I need a crowd of people, but I can't face them day to day.
I went to the radio interview, but I ended up alone at the microphone,
I went to the radio interview, but I ended up alone at the microphone.
Now I'm livin' out here on the beach, but those seagulls are still out of reach.
I went to the radio interview, but I ended up alone at the microphone.
Get out of town, think I'll get out of town,
Get out of town, think I'll get out of town.
I head for the sticks with my bus and friends,
I follow the road, though I don't know where it ends.
Get out of town, get out of town, think I'll get out of town.
'Cause the world is turnin', I don't want to see it turn away.
07 Motion Pictures (04:23)
Motion pictures on my TV screen,
A home away from home, livin' in between
But I hear some people have got their dream.
I've got mine.
I hear the mountains are doin' fine,
Mornin' glory is on the vine,
And the dew is fallin', the ducks are callin'.
Yes, I've got mine.
Well, all those people, they think they got it made
But I wouldn't buy, sell, borrow or trade
Anything I have to be like one of them.
I'd rather start all over again.
Well, all those headlines, they just bore me now
I'm deep inside myself, but I'll get out somehow,
And I'll stand before you, and I'll bring a smile to your eyes.
Motion pictures, motion pictures.
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Other reviews
By Mario
This beach seems more like a psychiatric institute, among the grooves of the album the introspection reaches a post-psychiatric operation stasis.
He would like to massacre all the Hollywood stars aboard their luxurious cars, he would like to be Charles Manson for a day.
By luludia
On a spectral tremor of sound, melancholy insinuates itself under the skin and a pale light passes through the glass.
Throw all your ghosts into the fire and watch the flames go out like the music that never fades away.
