Songs
"Walk On", the album's opener, has Young combining his cynical outlook with a touch of closure and a wish to move on and keep living. The album also includes the high-strung "Revolution Blues," inspired by Charles Manson, whom Young had met in his Topanga Canyon days. "For the Turnstiles" is a country-folk hybrid featuring Young's banjo and a caterwauling harmony vocal from Ben Keith, while playing Dobro. Also of note is "Vampire Blues," an attack on the oil industry. Young also throws in a remake of his Harvest era "See the Sky About to Rain." This track had also been released a year earlier on The Byrds's eponymous album.
Side two of the LP version opens with "On the Beach", a bluesy meditation on the downside of fame, and is followed by "Motion Pictures", a barely audible elegy for Young's relationship with actress Carrie Snodgress.
The album's title track "On The Beach," has been covered by many artists including Radiohead and Golden Smog.
Originally Young had intended for the A and B sides of the LP to be in reverse order, but was convinced by David Briggs to swap them at the last moment. Young has said that he later came to regret caving in.
Read more about this topic: On The Beach (Neil Young album)
Famous quotes containing the word songs:
“And songs climb out of the flames of the near campfires,
Pale, pastel things exquisite in their frailness
With a note or two to indicate it isn’t lost,
On them at least. The songs decorate our notion of the world
And mark its limits, like a frieze of soap-bubbles.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“And our sov’reign sole Creator
Lives eternal in the sky,
While we mortals yield to nature,
Bloom awhile, then fade and die.”
—Unknown. “Hail ye sighing sons of sorrow,” l. 13-16, Social and Campmeeting Songs (1828)
“O past! O happy life! O songs of joy!
In the air, in the woods, over fields,
Loved! loved! loved! loved! loved!
But my mate no more, no more with me!
We two together no more.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)