Neil Young - On The Beach

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.

i am stoic about it, just curios.
i mean, this song is so different than the rest of the album, it makes me wonder if whoever voted for it, really likes only that song.
(regardless, i think Vampire blues is boring)

Vampire Blues is demented and hilarious and perfectly placed - this shuffling little quirky song before the slab of intensity that is side 2. it's pretty adorable really.

Yeah, gives the whole thing this extra dimension and character. kinda can't imagine the rec w/o it.

only got around to listening to this album this month. def. one of his best. title track is th best for me. the line "i need a crowd of people but i cant face them day to day" is hitting the spot for me.

top 5 neil just for the helluvit

after the gold rush
everybody knows this is nowhere
on the beach
rust never sleeps
harvest

I expected you to be more stoic about this, zeno.

― 鬼の手 (Edward III), Wednesday, May 27, 2009 7:16 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark

lolling @ self is bad form but

ooh baby that's hard to change
i can't tell them how to feel
some get stoned
some get strange
sooner or later
it all gets real
walk on

haters gonna hate!

ha, chorus'd play great to that gif

http://www.stylebubble.co.uk/.a/6a00e5508e95a988330120a51e163d970c-800wi

Perfect album. Second side is justly celebrated, but my favorite moment is when the turbulence of "Revolution Blues" dies down and the first notes of "For the Turnstiles" are plucked out on banjo

can never decide if this or tonight's the night is the best neil

they're both perfect basically

in this land of conditions i am not above suspicion

all the bush league batters
are left to die on the diamond
in the stands the hometown scatters
for the turnstiles

This album is so, so good. I heard it for the first time only a couple months ago. Neil Young was always one of those classic rock guys in the canon who I sort of respected but didn't really feel strongly about - until I heard this album. The mood is so perfectly expressed.

Used to prefer After The Goldrush to this, but these days? Definitely OTB. Don't know if I mentioned this upthread, but this album reminds me very clearly of a time about 6 or 7 years ago, working on a tiny commercial estate in a small town, and going to a sandwich shop in my lunchbreak, looking out the window and watching the rain drizzle down while the cars rolled past. It's not an important memory, in fact it's rather mundane, but On The Beach fit the situation perfectly.

I would like to see Vampire Blues played in Breaking Bad in a scene where Walt takes a long monotonous drive through the desert.

you know what is surprisingly good? neil playing "Ambulance Blues" with REM at one of those Bridge benefit things in the late 90s.

The thing I especially love about this version is the way he changes the Nixon verse into a Clinton/Lewinsky verse. Totally in the moment, totally great.

whenever discussion of this album comes up, i feel it is my duty to point people in the direction of this bootleg: http://gratefulbreed.blogspot.com/2011/01/neil-young-citizen-cane-junior-blues-05.html

Is that the one where Neil talks about "honey slides"? Great set if so.

yeah, it's the bottom line 1974 show, where he debuts a bunch of on the beach

Okay, thats what I thought after glancing at the tracklist. I think I originally got that from your blog. Such a great, great set.

DAMN DAMN DAMN good album. First time I heard it was last week. It was halfway through a 2-week tour and we were exhausted and it was a hot summer night and we were driving through Virginia or something. I found this cassette at a thrift store that had this dubbed from vinyl, and it was a little slower than what is on the remasters, so it ended up sounding even heavier. Plus yeah we were pretty buzzed, so it really hit the spot.

Woulda voted for "Ambulance Blues" slightly over "Motion Pictures".

nice that someone is discovering this record. if i made a 10 favorite albums ever list, this would be near the top

Unbelievable album for a drive in the middle of nowhere. Heard it while driving through Utah two months ago and it was religious.

DAMN DAMN DAMN good album. First time I heard it was last week. It was halfway through a 2-week tour and we were exhausted and it was a hot summer night and we were driving through Virginia or something. I found this cassette at a thrift store that had this dubbed from vinyl, and it was a little slower than what is on the remasters, so it ended up sounding even heavier. Plus yeah we were pretty buzzed, so it really hit the spot.

Next time you drive around fucked up to this record, please don't do it in my neck of the woods.

Let's assume the driver was not high.

This album sounds so good when you're sick in bed.

& when yer sick in the head, tbh

Some dissent: compared to the albums in close proximity, I don't think this is nearly as good as Tonight's the Night or Zuma, and I'd also take Time Fades Away over it. "Ambulance Blues" is a masterpiece, and there are a few good weird ones if you're in the right mood. I think there are three songs that are among his most mediocre of the decade. Maybe his greatest album cover, though.