The Fat Angel Sings

On the Beach is the fifth studio album by Neil Young, released in 1974. It was unavailable on compact disc until it was released as a HDCD-encoded remastered version on August 19th, 2003 as part of his Archives Digital Masterpiece Series.

Recorded after (but released before) Tonight’s the Night, On the Beach shares some of that album’s bleakness and crude production—which came as a shock to fans and critics alike, as this was the long-awaited studio follow-up to the commercially and critically successful Harvest—but also included hints pointing towards a more subtle outlook, particularly on the opener, “Walk On”.

While the original Rolling Stone review described it as “One of the most despairing albums of the decade”, later critics used the benefit of hindsight to conclude that Young “[w]as saying goodbye to despair, not being overwhelmed by it”. The despair of Tonight’s the Night, communicated through intentional underproduction and lyrical pessimism, gives way to a more polished album that is still pessimistic but to a lesser degree. Much like Tonight’s the Night, On the Beach was not a commercial success at the time of its release but over time It’s attained a high regard from fans and critics alike. The album was recorded in a haphazard manner, with Young utilizing a variety of session musicians, and often changing their instruments while offering only bare-bones arrangements for them to follow (in a similar style to Tonight’s the Night). He also would opt for rough, monitor mixes of songs rather than a more polished sound, alienating his sound engineers in the process.

[The best song on the album…] Ambulance Blues:

“Ambulance Blues” closes the album. The melody ‘unintentionally’ quotes Bert Jansch’s “Needle of Death”. In a 1992 interview for the French “Guitare & Claviers” magazine, Young discussed Jansch’ influence:

“As for acoustic guitar, Bert Jansch is on the same level as Jimi (Hendrix). That first record of his is epic. It came from England, and I was especially taken by “Needle of Death”, such a beautiful and angry song. That guy was so good. And years later, on On the Beach, I wrote the melody of “Ambulance Blues” by styling the guitar part completely on “Do You Hear Me Now?”. I wasn’t even aware of it, and someone else drew my attention to it.”

The second side of On the Beach ends with “Ambulance Blues,” it’s a stunningly brilliant, stream-of-conscious epic that ranks as one of Neil Young’s greatest lyrical achievements, taking on everything from Richard Nixon (“I never knew a man could tell so many lies”) to the sad state of Crosby, Stills and Nash (“You’re all just pissin’ in the wind/You don’t know it but you are.”) But it begins in a better place, looking back on the “old folky days” when “the air was magic when we played.” But time made that magic fade away, and sorrow mixed with pity quickly seeps into the verses. The song sat dormant for a good many years, but in 1998 he made a shocking return at the Bridge School Benefit and then he played it every night on the 2007-’08 theater tour.

If there’s any doubt that Neil Young was super bummed out when he made On The Beach in early 1974, listen no further to the title track that kicks off the second side of the LP. “The world is turnin’,” he sings in the opening lines. “I hope it don’t turn away.” It only gets worse from there as he contends with a radio interview where he winds up “alone at the microphone” before he decides to simply get out of town. “I head for the sticks with my bus and friends,” he sings. “I follow the road, though I don’t know where it ends.” The road took him to a disastrous CSNY reunion tour later that year that did little to lighten his mood, though by the end of the year he met future wife Pegi Morton and things turned around. He played “On the Beach” at a bunch of 1974 CSNY shows, though it’s a super rarity this days. Since 1975 he’s only played it twice: at a 1999 solo acoustic show in Chicago and in 2003 at a Greendale acoustic show in Hamburg, Germany.

“Good times are coming, I hear it everywhere I go,” Neil Young sings on 1974’s “Vampire Blues.” “Good times are coming, but they sure are coming slow.” Featuring guitarist George Whitsell (who played with Crazy Horse in their 1960s band the Rockets) and bassist Tim Drummond scraping a credit card on his beard for a cool sound effect, “Vampire Blues” is a typically bummed-out On the Beach song where Young compares himself to a vampire bat seeking out “high octane” blood. The only time he ever played it live was at an Eagles show in 1974, though it has been rehearsed for his upcoming summer tour.

David Crosby got roped into playing guitar on this creepy On the Beach tune, but the tale of a Charles Manson-like figure freaked him out and to this day he says he doesn’t care for the song. It’s certainly hard to imagine the former Byrd writing a song from the perspective of a murderous psychopath with lines 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 their cars.” But it was a reflection of the difficult time when the (supposedly) peaceful 1960s had given way to the violent, coked-out 1970s. Young hasn’t touched the song since a one-off Crazy Horse gig in 1987.

Personnel:

• Neil Young – guitar on 1 3 5 6 7 8, vocal, Wurlitzer electric piano on 2, banjo on 4, harmonica on 7 8
• Ben Keith – slide guitar on 1, vocal on 1 4, steel guitar on 2, Dobro on 4, Wurlitzer electric piano on 3, organ on 5, hand drums on 6, bass on 7 8
• Tim Drummond – bass on 2 5 6, percussion on 5
• Ralph Molina – drums on 1 5 6, vocal on 1, hand drums on 7 8

Additional personnel

• Billy Talbot – bass on 1
• Levon Helm – drums on 2 3
• Joe Yankee – harp on 2, electric tambourine on 8
• David Crosby – guitar on 3
• Rick Danko – bass on 3
• George Whitsell – guitar on 5
• Graham Nash – Wurlitzer electric piano on 6
• Rusty Kershaw – slide guitar on 7, fiddle on 8

On the Beach was savage and, ultimately, triumphant. “I’m a vampire, babe,” Young sang, and he proceeded to take bites out of various subjects: threatening the lives of the stars who lived in L.A.’s Laurel Canyon (“Revolution Blues”); answering back to Lynyrd Skynyrd, whose “Sweet Home Alabama” had taken him to task for his criticisms of the South in “Southern Man” and “Alabama” (“Walk On”); and rejecting the critics (“Ambulance Blues”). But the barbs were mixed with humor and even affection, as Young seemed to be emerging from the grief and self-abuse that had plagued him for two years. But the album was so spare and under-produced, its lyrics so harrowing, that it was easy to miss Young’s conclusion: he was saying goodbye to despair, not being overwhelmed by it.