Neil Young - On The Beach

the bridge of 'walk on' has some of my favourite ever neil guitar sounds

"Walk On" is a peculiar opener; doesn't he say something about this in the liner notes to Decade?

I came to this album pretty late in my Neil life so I tend to think of this as "Revolution Blues", on the one hand, and then the second side as a unit on the other.

I wish I had this album with me right now; I'd really like to hear "Motion Pictures" b/c I'm away from home and I'm deep inside myself right now.

well, i'm drunk

walk on is one of those songs. Those perfect kiss offs. I've never felt a real kiss that left such a salty acidic taste in my mouth.

i feel like this whole album is trapped in a squirming layer of ectoplasm. walk on.

tripmaker, et al, have at it

time fades away HDCD

for illustration purposes

walk on

for euler

motion pictures

thankig u

voted "ambulance blues" but already wishing i'd voted "motion pictures." not that you can really go wrong here.

now that you mention it, there is no wrong answer

thanks so much for "Motion Pictures", needed it badly tonight; the song is so exhausted, he makes the harmonica sound discrete rather than continuous, like it takes these massive steps rather flowing, like flowing would take too much energy and anyway I've got mine.

rather *than* flowing

It's funny, I've only ever owned the CD version of this, but always having thought of those last three tracks as a side-b epic trilogy (I read about the album before hearing it) I can't conceive of voting for them individually. My gut's saying Revolution Blues, but I'm gonna hold off on voting another day or two in case I decide I should have gone with Sky About To Rain.

I like that in all the talk of this album as being so down and rainy, I still can't think of it as anything but a positive force.

Terrific album, great thread too! I was so happy to find this on vinyl, half a year before the CD reissue as it later turned out... Still very happy with it as the I dig the artwork a lot. Upon hearing the CD I got the impression that the songs felt a bit slower then on the vinyl I bought, most evidently (to me anyway) in the case of "Walk On". Makes it a bit more upbeat, musically.

Anyway, my vote goes to "Sky About to Rain". Instruments, arrangement, the slightly restrained playing (as I perceive it) - it all adds up to this melancholic beauty of a song.

basically been listening to this on repeat since this thread started, thanks thread.

^

hehe, me too!

otm also about "see the sky about to rain" - my favourite bit of pedal steel guitar this side of m.ward.

Thanks, EdIII!

Eddie, you're a star!

a good T/S would be "on the beach" vs. the unreleased "chrome dreams"

or on the beach, tonight's the night, and time fades away

"I'd rather start all over a-gain."

yeah i'd still go w/tonight's the night. but it just blows my mind he left an album as good as "chrome dreams" unreleased.

if he ever does the next volume of "archives" it could be so dope.

probably my favorite Neil Young album, and that's saying something. i think discovering this album when i was a kid and realizing that it wasn't on CD was one of the formative moments in my music obsession. Sooner or laterrrrr it all gets real! and not to be captain plug-a-blog here but if you haven't heard this show: http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/83610034/citizen-kane-jr-on-the-beach-first-post download it NOWWWWW.

If you keep linking to stuff like that, I'll follow you anywhere, cap'n.

i voted for "Motion Pictures" btw. Though I could've voted for any of them. "Motion Pictures" is my favorite to play on guitar, just five lovely chords circling around each other.

"On The Beach" for the lyrics alone.

Perfect album, duh

Thanks for the link tylerw!

no prob -- lots more Neil on the blog if you dig around.
i do love that electric piano/wurlitzer whatevs on See The Sky -- Neil doesn't play that anywhere else, does he? interesting that Levon and Rick from the Band show up here -- I dream that the next volume of the Archives will have like a full session with them ... doing songs from Zuma or something.

that's a hard one as that is really one of neil's most intimate and best albums and there are no duds on it. i'd say sky is the one as the simple & sad tune touches something deep inside me. that pedal steel sound totally kills me every time. it is not cheesy at all. and it does not give the song a country vibe. yes, i still can't take country most of the time. the title track is almost on par and revolution blues and walk on are phantastic too.

hello, long time lurker but very infrequent poster...
see the sky is beautiful but at this stage i'm in danger of over-familiarity. walk on, on the other hand, can't see this one ever getting old. love that lurching/funky rhythm. looking forward to seeing NY @ Primavera festival in Barcelona in a couple of weeks too!

It's not the best song, but I'd sort of like to rep for Vampire Blues! It's overlooked because jesus every song on this album is gold, but I love love love this song/recording. It sounds like what I thought Tonight's the Night would sound like just from descriptions of it before I actually heard it. It just nails the exhausted/strung out/at least I got my band feeling.

hellz yeah
http://i1.tinypic.com/nzrbia.jpg

definitely his best cover/design -- love that the inside of the album is the same pattern as the beach furniture
http://jq.weblog.com.pt/arquivo/on-the-beach.jpg

http://www.jazzeddie.f2s.com/images/Muppets/muppets2floyd10.jpg

No Time Fades Away thread that I can find...who is THIS^ dude, before "Yonder Stands The Sinner" who responds to Crosby (I presume), saying, "It's gonna be good, though"?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Motion Pictures 4:20 4

???????????????????

dude, with that track selection i don't think 4 votes for any one song is too much of a shocker

this album is kinda perfect though

do we need a run-off now between Revolution Blues and Ambulance Blues? Ties are unacceptable. We must have a winner or civilization will cease function.

as great as those two songs are but... they cannot be the best songs on this album. impossible. we have to vote again. sorry about that.

This part is right: "this album is kinda perfect though."

What difference does it make?xpost

you know what is surprisingly good? neil playing "Ambulance Blues" with REM at one of those Bridge benefit things in the late 90s. Mighta been the first time he'd played it live since the 70s, and you can hear him be sort of surprised by his own words.

as great as those two songs are but... they cannot be the best songs on this album. impossible. we have to vote again. sorry about that.

― alex in mainhattan, Tuesday, May 26, 2009 5:22 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

for an album that's dedicated to sounding out life's great unresolvables, this outcome is entirely appropriate, poetic even

neil's neuroses FTW

I didn't vote! I couldn't decide!

Missed the vote but prob. would have gone for "On the Beach", that guitar tone is unreal.

whoever voted for vampire blues:
why?
maybe because you don't like the rest of the album so much?

there's no accounting for taste? just the same I expected you to be more stoic about this, zeno.