No Sunscreen Required: ‘On The Beach’ With Neil Young
My Year of Neil Young, Part 5: My album review of ‘On The Beach’
NOTE: I’m now into my fourth month of “My Year of Neil Young,” in which I’m listening to and reviewing all of his studio albums. I’m only up to his fifth album so far and he’s got over 40 of them. At the rate I’m going, I’m not sure if one year is going to be enough for me to get to them all.
Then again, I could count the year like a “dog year.” In that case, I’d have plenty of time left.
Regardless, let’s move on…
Neil Young’s album On The Beach was released on July 19, 1974. It was his first studio album since the incredibly successful Harvest from 1972. While Harvest had contained the hit singles “Heart Of Gold” and “Old Man,” the only single released from On The Beach was “Walk On.” It didn’t sell well enough to make the Top 40 charts and it wasn’t considered a hit.
According to the Wikipedia page for the On The Beach album, the album was deleted as a vinyl release in the early 1980s and was only briefly available on 8-track and cassette tapes. This all made it a bit of a rarity for many years. It was eventually re-released as a compact disc, but that didn’t happen until 2003.
Personally, I never even knew of the album’s existence until just this year. As soon as I listened to it, though, I liked it a lot.
It was recorded during an especially difficult time in Neil Young’s life — not very long after he lost some very close friends to drug overdoses. In turn, the album is definitely a bit darker than Neil’s earlier albums. In fact, there are three songs on it that have the word “blues” in their titles.
I often struggle with albums when they get too dark or depressing-sounding and I get sort of turned off by them. I end up listening to them once or twice and that’s usually about it.
However, there’s a good enough balance of things on On The Beach, both musically and lyrically, that I have no problem with the album. On the contrary — for reasons I’m not even entirely sure of, I feel some sort of special “connection” to this album. It’s quickly become one of my favorites from Neil.
Here are some of my favorite songs from it:
Walk On
I’m a bit surprised this wasn’t a hit when it was released. I like Neil’s vocals a lot in it. Plus, the music is pretty awesome and the chorus is fun to sing along with. It’s hard for me to choose one “favorite song” on the album, but “Walk On” might be it.
Revolution Blues
This one was inspired by Charles Manson, whom Neil Young had met several years earlier. Musically, it’s the most rocking song on the album. While the lyrics in it are fine enough, I like this one mostly for the music in it.
Vampire Blues
Like the previous song, I like this one primarily for the music. It has a nice mix of both rock and the blues in it. The lyrics, in which Neil compares the oil industry to a vampire, are also very good.
On The Beach
I said above that “Walk On” might be my favorite song on the album, but this one gives that one a run for its money. It has both exceptional music and lyrics.
These are some of my favorite lyrics from it:
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 bet most people have felt that way from time to time. I know I sure have.
As far as the rest of the songs on the album go, I enjoy all of them pretty evenly, except for “Motion Pictures (For Carrie).” That one’s okay, but it just doesn’t knock me out, for one reason or another. However, I do enjoy the harmonica playing in it.
All in all, I think that On The Beach is an exceptional album. Out of 5 possible stars, I give it….drumroll, please…4 stars!
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Though this review is about an album entitled On The Beach, I assure you that no speedos were worn by me during the writing of it.
In you enjoyed my review of this Neil Young album, you may also enjoy my other reviews from My Year of Neil Young:
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