On The Beach

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On The Beach lyrics by Neil Young

Analysis of "On The Beach" lyrics by Neil Young

[Note: This is one of a series of articles which provide an explanation of the meaning of Neil Young's classic album "On The Beach". While the interpretation of lyrics presented here is composed of several viewpoints, there is little consensus on the exact meaning of Neil's songs. The themes and symbolism of Young's songwriting provide a rich tapestry on which to project various meanings and analysis. ]

"On The Beach" has long been hailed as a masterpiece. The album's infamous "blues trilogy" comprising of "Revolution Blues", "Vampire Blues", and "Ambulance Blues" have provided rich fodder for analysis and commentary. The "blues trilogy" is considered by many fans some of Neil's richest and most metaphorical work.

From Ian MacDonald's outstanding and definitive analysis in New Musical Express "You're All Just Pissing In the Wind" :

"Right now, Neil Young is in kind of an invidious position. On The Beach is his equivalent of John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band album in terms of being a reaction to, and rejection of, his earlier work but, whereas Lennon's change was gradual (starting, really, from 'Help!'), Young has made his artistic stock-in-trade the investigation of personal pain from the very beginning.

Thus, that an album as bleak and miserable-sounding as On The Beach has been preceded by no less than six other albums almost all equally bleak and miserable-sounding can easily obscure the fact that the record represents a departure. Indeed, even if people were to credit Young with doing something vaguely new in On The Beach, a lot of them would be fairly justified in dismissing his 'new' bleakness as a bleaker version of the one they... er, already knew and loved. And that's the catch, really. "

From Ian MacDonald's OTB review: "You're All Just Pissing In the Wind" commenting on 'Ambulance Blues':

"All the loose strands are gathered and woven together in the final track, 'Ambulance Blues' - a beautiful song, possibly Young's best ever. It's organized to self-regenerate: a verse formed from a repeated couplet that wanders round a little circle of six changes, then ... another verse that strains vainly upwards for three lines, sags back for one more, and finally relaxes resignedly into the original verse. There's no chorus, no middle eight. It just keeps going, round and round, slow-medium tempo, utterly composed. Young picks an aged acoustic and blows smeary harp."

From uncut62 on Ian MacDonald's analysis :

"There is an understandably speculative tone to some of MacDonald's comments, which can be attributed to the rumours and counter-rumours that surrounded the making of On The Beach and which had surfaced a couple of weeks earlier in Steve Clarke's original review. This explains the confusion over the album's several proposed titles - both Tonight's The Night and Homegrown are separate albums, the latter still unreleased.

And while MacDonald correctly identifies some of the major players in the songs - Manson, especially, and the revolutionary Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), then waging an undeclared war against the American government that ended in a ferocious gun-battle with the FBI in LA that left most of them dead, shot to pieces or burned alive - he wouldn't necessarily have known that the 'Isabella' mentioned in 'Ambulance Blues' is a street in Toronto where Young used to hang out in his early days there, and that the Riverboat was the name of a folk club where he used to play.

Nor did he pick up on the fact that the kidnapping mentioned in the song is a reference to the abduction of heiress Patty Hearst by the SLA. He also interprets the final verse - 'I never knew a man could tell so many lies' - as something confessional by Young about himself, which is intriguing, although Young meant it as a parting shot in the direction of the disgraced and venal Richard Nixon. "

From A City Waiting for the Sunrise - Toronto in Song and Sound:

"Neil Young's 1974 song, 'Ambulance Blues' memorializes one of the most famous Yorkville clubs of the 1960s, The Riverboat, from the city's 'old folky days,' and its closing lines also mention Toronto: 'Well, I'm up in T.0. keepin' jive alive I And out on the corner it's half past five' (cf. also A DREAMER OF PICTURES by David Downing)"

The song "Motion Pictures" was dedicated to Neil's girlfriend Carrie Snodgress who was an Oscar nominated actress. The liner notes of "On The Beach" for "Motion Pictures" say: "For Carrie".

Lyrics of "Motion Pictures" clearly reference Carrie and Young's love for her:

"And I'll stand before you,
and I'll bring a smile to your eyes.
Motion pictures, motion pictures. "

(More on Carrie Snodgress and the songs Neil wrote about her and their film appearance together in "Journey Through The Past".)

On the lyrics of REVOLUTION BLUES , John Blakeney writes:

"Well, these lyrics are poured over and dissected, with every word explored with total dedication by Neil-Heads the world over. Is Neil again playing a part [ or two ] to put across view-points that perhaps he is personally uncomfortable with?

Does he REALLY want to kill the inhabitants of Laurel Canyon or is he wondering out loud about the inner thoughts of Charlie Manson and the human schism between LA trailer trash and Hollywood?

Well, we live in a trailer at the edge of town
You never see us 'cause we don't come around.
We got twenty five rifles just to keep the population down.
But we need you now, and that's why I'm hangin' 'round.
So you be good to me and I'll be good to you,
And in this land of conditions I'm not above suspicion
I won't attack you, but I won't back you.

Well, I hear that Laurel Canyon is full of famous stars,
But I hate them worse than lepers and
I'll kill them in their cars


Its scary just reading the words, played live as it was in 25/01/83 San Francisco, where he dedicated the song to Charles Manson, it takes on a frightening life of its own.

Dylan said that his Masters of War lyric was the only song where he wished people dead, Revolution Blues was Neil's. Dylan meant what he sang............But Did Neil ???

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