While many may define the beach as a place of beautiful longing, Neil Young sees it as the dunes of war. There is nothing to love about the grains between your toes or the splashes of water carried by the wind. Young is right. He articulates these fresh fears following Harvest well and takes to the beach to do so, redefining what we see in the familiar places, those universal reflections of mood. Young offers incredible honesty. So much so it feels almost cruel and overwhelming to peer into his thoughts and feelings at the time. On the Beach is so bluntly honest with a listener that those connecting with Young through this isolation-themed record cannot help but feel like an intruder. Those good old days are just that, old. Memories. On the Beach tries to kindle the highs of those previous encounters with joy but our development as people, as individuals, provides a shock alienation.
Such is the case for opener Walk On. Those seasonal shortcomings later expanded by See the Sky About to Rain are a continuation of a spiral. Young feels for the comfort of memories in his past but comes up short. His memories are abandoning him as he left those who made up those solace-inducing moments. But our memories subject us to falsehoods and keep us stuck where we are. More than anything, On the Beach is a cry for continuation. He may find himself in those moments on the edge of town, sifting through his previous encounters, but he has hopes for a brighter future, of a new dawn for himself. Memories are often left where they are, as is the case for painting Charles Manson in a positive light on Revolution Blues. Still, how was Young to know? He stirs the pot of a cult leader with a hidden talent for instrumentals and it feels more like a mark of the cultural shift, the folk-rock boom, than anything else.
Those choppy cultural arrangements hear Young hit out at problems which persist. His understanding and rejection of the music business, of how it operates, can be heard on For the Turnstiles. Young has since raged on against the suits which manipulate and market his music and it marks one of many refreshing moments in the often-haphazard style of On the Beach. Instrumentally all over the place but still, a warm experience for those wanting to hear the staggering approach Young takes to the world around him. He may turn away from what is beautiful but in doing so he claws at the soft spots of his past; the likes of his title track all the stronger for it. Frankly cool instrumentals here, the interlude before this interview horror story, is enough to carry the tender shot Young provides.
On the Beach is where this drive for abandonment comes from. This desire to get out of town and to escape the expectations of the inevitable tour and interview cycle. In snapping off this connection to the world around him, Young’s resolve hardens and becomes a bitter version of Harvest, which in itself had been marred by loneliness. But it was the longing for companionship which guided that work, and On the Beach hopes only to keep to itself. Often bleak but never without heart, On the Beach provides tremendous insight into how following up a commercial success became too much for Young. He does not so much deconstruct his sound as he does a U-turn in what he desires. From isolation to isolation, but a darker mood to it now his mind is made up.
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