On July 19, 2024, Neil Young’s fifth studio album, On the Beach, turned 50.
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You might think the title implies a vacation. But Young felt stranded, heartbroken, and exhausted. He said it might be the most depressing record he’s made.
His relationship with actress Carrie Snodgress was ending. She was Young’s muse behind “A Man Needs a Maid.” In Jimmy McDonough’s 2002 biography Shakey, Young said, “I think it was a period of disillusionment about things turning out differently than I had anticipated. I think I was starting to realize what a f–ked-up life I had chosen for myself with Carrie.”
Meanwhile, fans longed for another Harvest, but Young wasn’t going to repeat himself. The tenderness behind his 1972 classic resulted from the start of a romance with Snodgress and a new California home, Broken Arrow Ranch. However, On the Beach is the other side of that happiness.
The title track kicks off Side Two. It’s the highlight on one of the best second sides to any album you’ll hear.
Stranded on the Beach
Grappling with fame, Young struggles with the need for an audience, though he doesn’t always have the will to face the crowd.
All my pictures are falling
From the wall where I placed them yesterday
The world is turning
I hope it don’t turn away
Fame also brings isolation. With a shattered romance, the singer felt alone and confused while he longed for peace.
Now I’m living out here on the beach
But those seagulls are still out of reach
I went to the radio interview
But I ended up alone at the microphone
The seven-minute track also features Graham Nash on Wurlitzer electric piano, bassist Tim Drummond, drummer Ralph Molina, and Ben Keith providing hand drums.
Honey Slide Cocktail
Young recorded On the Beach at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles. He owes the slow-burn haze of the sessions to something called a “honey slide.” Young’s longtime manager, Elliot Roberts, said the cocktail “was debilitating. People passed out.”
Roberts claimed the “honey slide” was worse than heroin and that within 10 minutes of drinking it, “you were catatonic.”
At a 1974 concert in New York, Young described the concoction as “poor-grade marijuana.” “You take it and you get your old lady, if you got one,” he said, “to cook it up on the stove.”
Multi-instrumentalist Rusty Kershaw wrote in the liner notes to On the Beach, “In return, Neil played, sang, and wrote the best of any music in a while. Not to speak of the fun we had. We laughed so hard we all had bruised ribs.”
Though Young may have been suffering through a dark period, he and the band seemed to enjoy themselves, finding catharsis at Sunset Sound.
Desolation Beach
Designer Gary Burden created the album artwork with Young. He’s wearing a cheap suit on a Santa Monica Beach. The sky is dreary, and the tail end of an old Cadillac pokes out from the sand. A newspaper lies under a picnic table with the headline: “Sen. Buckley Calls for Nixon to Resign.”
Nevertheless, Young ignores it all. The chaos of a broken relationship and a broken world crashes and burns behind him as he stares into the ocean.
“On the Beach” is Young contemplating an escape.
Get out of town
Think I’ll get out of town.
Photo by Michael Putland/Getty Images
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