Album: On The Beach
Recorded: Late 1973 and March-April 1974
Released: July 1974
Recorded: Late 1973 and March-April 1974
Released: July 1974
Songs / length: 8 / 39:40
In his autobiography, Young ranks On The Beach's album cover among his favourites and tells the story behind how all the props were gathered, including the tail fin of a 1959 Cadillac, his thrift shop clothes and the palm tree that Young took round the world on his Tonight The Night’s tour. The beach where the cover photo was shot is Santa Monica, the other side of LA to where most of of the album was recorded, at Sunset Studios in Hollywood. This is a place that has many happy memories for Young, going back to his Buffalo Springfield days, and all but two tracks – Walk On and For The Turnstiles, both recorded in late 1973 at Broken Arrow Ranch – were recorded at Sunset Studios.
Walk On was already in Young's repertoire in September 1973, and appears in his Roxy live set, a song that reveals a desire to distance himself from negative people and go back to a time when making music felt more authentic. Things were changing in Young's personal life at this time, and he talks in his autobiography of the growing distance between him and Carrie in 1973, leading to their split in 1974 – soon after, Young would meet his future wife Pegi. Good friends Ben Keith and Rusty Kershaw (who wrote On The Beach's hilariously bad liner notes) were by his side during this time, and both feature on the album – Young has talked about how he took honey slides (weed cooked with honey) before recording the album track Motion Pictures with them both.
Stoner folk epic Ambulance Blues was the first album cut to be recorded at Sunset Studios, and might just be one of the most profound songs Young's ever written, its sprawling structure and sound echoing Bert Jansch's Needle of Death guitar riff, as Young celebrates his musical beginnings at the Riverside folk club in Toronto along side the likes of Joni Mitchell and Gordon Lightfoot. As with Walk On though, Young sees no value in dwelling on the past and reflecting on lost hippy dreams ("An ambulance can only go so fast / it's easier to get buried in the past / when you try to make a good thing last"), especially given the harsh political realities of his time, notably Nixon ("Never knew a man could tell so many lies / he had a different story for every set of eyes"). It's hard to tell the meaning of this song, and sometimes I feel like I'm just pissin' in the wind with all this analysis, but all I do know is the best songs seems to cast a spell and Ambulance Blues always hooks me in.
On both this album and Tonight's The Night, the emotional rawness and pessimism is striking but what I appreciate about On The Beach is its air of defiance, with Young literally turning his back (as the cover depicts) on the wealthy Laurel Canyon hippies, critics, bandmates and hangers-on that wore him down. For The Turnstiles explores a dystopian future of business corrupting the music scene (Young was jaded from a recent CSNY tour when he wrote this song) and has a great banjo melody, while Revolution Blues is starker in its sound and darker in its themes, an ecoterrorist fantasy that is the first of three "blues" songs that give an insight into Young's febrile frame of mind at the time.
Vampire Blues is probably the most bleak cut on the record and the mood doesn't lighten much on side 2, though the run of three songs from On The Beach via Motion Pictures to Ambulance Blues is arguably the highlight of Young's prolific musical output. These were the first three tracks Young recorded at Sunset Studios, and they share a similar folk sound and confessional tone, seamlessly merging one into the other to produce 20 minutes of musical genius.
What also elevates On The Beach into the upper tier of 70s albums is the backing band, including Rick Danko and Levon Helm of The Band, bassist Tim Drummond and the ever-present Crosby and Nash. The mix of Ben Keith's steel guitar, Drummond's bass, Helm's drumming and Young's Wurlitzer and harp playing on See The Sky About To Rain is, for me, one of the musical highlights on the record. Engineer Al Schmidt wanted Young to let him remix the album's original rough cuts, but Young refused and rightly so. It's ragged and perfect as far as I'm concerned.
Highlights: See The Sky About To Rain, Revolution Blues, On The Beach, Ambulance Blues
Album rating: A+
In his autobiography, Young ranks On The Beach's album cover among his favourites and tells the story behind how all the props were gathered, including the tail fin of a 1959 Cadillac, his thrift shop clothes and the palm tree that Young took round the world on his Tonight The Night’s tour. The beach where the cover photo was shot is Santa Monica, the other side of LA to where most of of the album was recorded, at Sunset Studios in Hollywood. This is a place that has many happy memories for Young, going back to his Buffalo Springfield days, and all but two tracks – Walk On and For The Turnstiles, both recorded in late 1973 at Broken Arrow Ranch – were recorded at Sunset Studios.
Walk On was already in Young's repertoire in September 1973, and appears in his Roxy live set, a song that reveals a desire to distance himself from negative people and go back to a time when making music felt more authentic. Things were changing in Young's personal life at this time, and he talks in his autobiography of the growing distance between him and Carrie in 1973, leading to their split in 1974 – soon after, Young would meet his future wife Pegi. Good friends Ben Keith and Rusty Kershaw (who wrote On The Beach's hilariously bad liner notes) were by his side during this time, and both feature on the album – Young has talked about how he took honey slides (weed cooked with honey) before recording the album track Motion Pictures with them both.
Stoner folk epic Ambulance Blues was the first album cut to be recorded at Sunset Studios, and might just be one of the most profound songs Young's ever written, its sprawling structure and sound echoing Bert Jansch's Needle of Death guitar riff, as Young celebrates his musical beginnings at the Riverside folk club in Toronto along side the likes of Joni Mitchell and Gordon Lightfoot. As with Walk On though, Young sees no value in dwelling on the past and reflecting on lost hippy dreams ("An ambulance can only go so fast / it's easier to get buried in the past / when you try to make a good thing last"), especially given the harsh political realities of his time, notably Nixon ("Never knew a man could tell so many lies / he had a different story for every set of eyes"). It's hard to tell the meaning of this song, and sometimes I feel like I'm just pissin' in the wind with all this analysis, but all I do know is the best songs seems to cast a spell and Ambulance Blues always hooks me in.
On both this album and Tonight's The Night, the emotional rawness and pessimism is striking but what I appreciate about On The Beach is its air of defiance, with Young literally turning his back (as the cover depicts) on the wealthy Laurel Canyon hippies, critics, bandmates and hangers-on that wore him down. For The Turnstiles explores a dystopian future of business corrupting the music scene (Young was jaded from a recent CSNY tour when he wrote this song) and has a great banjo melody, while Revolution Blues is starker in its sound and darker in its themes, an ecoterrorist fantasy that is the first of three "blues" songs that give an insight into Young's febrile frame of mind at the time.
Vampire Blues is probably the most bleak cut on the record and the mood doesn't lighten much on side 2, though the run of three songs from On The Beach via Motion Pictures to Ambulance Blues is arguably the highlight of Young's prolific musical output. These were the first three tracks Young recorded at Sunset Studios, and they share a similar folk sound and confessional tone, seamlessly merging one into the other to produce 20 minutes of musical genius.
What also elevates On The Beach into the upper tier of 70s albums is the backing band, including Rick Danko and Levon Helm of The Band, bassist Tim Drummond and the ever-present Crosby and Nash. The mix of Ben Keith's steel guitar, Drummond's bass, Helm's drumming and Young's Wurlitzer and harp playing on See The Sky About To Rain is, for me, one of the musical highlights on the record. Engineer Al Schmidt wanted Young to let him remix the album's original rough cuts, but Young refused and rightly so. It's ragged and perfect as far as I'm concerned.
Highlights: See The Sky About To Rain, Revolution Blues, On The Beach, Ambulance Blues
Album rating: A+
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