The Epic Bummer That Closed Out Neil Young’s Most Desolate Album

When you amass a catalog as vast and varied as Neil Young’s, certain songs will inevitably take on mythic status. These are the songs that might not mean much to casual fans, but they’ve earned a special place in the hearts of true believers.

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“Ambulance Blues” certainly belongs in that category for Young. The epic, rambling, deeply mysterious 1974 song obfuscates with non-sequiturs. Yet it also seems to reveal a ton about the state of Young’s heart and mind at the time.

Call the “Ambulance”

Neil Young’s profile skyrocketed in the early 70s. He wasn’t exactly an unknown before that thanks to his work with Buffalo Springfield and his early, excellent solo efforts. But it all changed in a hurry thanks to a couple of developments.

He joined Crosby, Stills & Nash for their 1970 album Déjà Vu, a massive hit that brought Young’s idiosyncratic vocals and songwriting to the masses. Hot on the heels of that, he released the 1972 album Harvest, which included the breakaway hit single “Old Man”.

Young felt deeply ambivalent about what all this meant for him as an artist. He receded from the chaos surrounding CSN. And he started releasing solo material that shunned commercial concerns in favor of stark, uncompromising songwriting. On The Beach, released in 1974, epitomized this turnabout.

“Ambulance Blues” floats about in a haze at the end of the album. Young strolls along a desolate musical landscape for close to nine minutes. The lyrics shun anything resembling a linear narrative for a series of vignettes, memories, and caustic observations. It’s a perfectly piercing closing statement for the mostly downcast album.

Examining the Lyrics of “Ambulance Blues”

Young begins by looking back to simpler times. “Back in the old folky days/The air was magic when we played,” he begins. But he quickly turns on a dime to sing of things lost, specifically the mysterious Isabela, which sounds more like a building than a woman. “How could I see you and stay too long?” he wonders.

That leads him to a bummer of a verse. “Burn-outs stub their toes on garbage pails,” he sings. “Waitresses are crying in the rain.” Even Mother Goose is a downer here, with the narrator taking some of the blame. “And I’m such a heel for makin’ her feel so bad,” Young laments.

Young wonders if he’s indulging too much in nostalgia. “It’s easy to get buried in the past,” he says. “When you try to make a good thing last.” He then moves on to castigating the music scene, including critics. And he remembers advice that he heard once that takes the air out of the pompous balloon of stardom: “You’re all just pissin’ in the wind/You don’t know it but you are.”

The final verse finds Young targeting a current enemy, one that likely was inspired by then-President Nixon. “I never knew a man could tell so many lies,” he sneers. That leads to one of his most damning couplets. “How can he remember who he’s talkin to?” he wonders. “’Cause I know it ain’t me, and I hope it ain’t you.”

At one point during this swerving monologue, Young admits, “It’s hard to say the meaning of this song.” That unknowability is part of the charm of “Ambulance Blues”. It evokes plenty even when the specifics elude us.

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