NEIL YOUNG

Stellar fans of On The Beach discuss their favourite tracks, with contributions from Margo Price, Kurt Vile, Ethan Miller, JMascis and more

SIDE 1

1 “WALK ON”

ERIKAELDER;RAINIMILLER;NATHANKEAY

Album opener gives no hint of what’s to come. Ajaunty, funky affair, with some satisfyingly supple rhythm playing from Billy Talbot and Ralph Molina…

MATT VALENTINE, MV&EE/WET TUNA: “I grew up listening to On The Beach, it was bigger than M*A*S*H in my house. One summer when Iwas workin’ and on ladders all the time, there was aNew York station that would play album sides. They jammed Rust Never Sleeps often when it came out and I immediately bought the ‘Out Of The Blue’ 45. My parents said, ‘Y’know, that’s the same artist as On The Beach.’ I took On The Beach to my room and listened on headphones all night long. I bet it all on that record.

“‘Walk On’ is not what most folks think of when they rap about the On The Beach experience. For me, it is asweet choice to open side A. I think of it as spectrasound. Open your mind, expand the range. It resides on an altered plane –almost 4th dimensional –especially in comparison to the rest of the record, but it gives it an arc.

“The syncopated riff goes so deep, such a unique energy swagger, it’s definitely one of his more ‘involved’ arrangements. The Horse give ‘Walk On’ another phase within these stages.

“My family took long day trips to Jones Beach. Leave at dawn, pack apicnic… come home way after dusk. Neil came alot. The beach got packed on nice days, but desolate –ultra tumbleweeds – when the sun set. That’s the On The Beach vibe. It’s asonic odyssey, abit stony and abig bite of mood. It’s what I think of when I think of ‘Neil’.”

2 “SEE THE SKY ABOUT TO RAIN”

Written for Harvest and retaining a country vibe with Ben Keith’s steel guitar, three years on the mood is markedly more fragile and frayed

MEG BAIRD:“The whole album has the ability to go into really dark places in a beautiful way that’s not trying to be dark. The anchoring song is ‘On The Beach’, with that composite chord right before the chorus that is just massive and gnarled and yet also really beautiful, and offers asense of relief. That’s the sound-picture and then the whole album orbits around it –the legends behind it, and all the painful experiences. ‘See The Sky About To Rain’’s lyrics are about loneliness and look out on the big, charged landscapes that Neil captures so well. Combining Harvest’s mindset with On The Beach’s production creates this tension and duality between two really compelling layers. The head and heart are in different places, between On The Beach’s LA and the ranch. Neil playing the Wurlitzer masks the original’s redwood parlour at the end of the universe, where you feel the struggle of why there’s even apiano out there in the first place. That’s still there in the Live At The Cellar Door version, where it’s just piano and voice in asmall room, and it’s implicit here. You can hear the Victorian parlour grand in the Wurlitzer! Levon Helm’s drumming somehow makes it more sad, the bluesiness of it comes through in adifferent way, like they’re trying to play through it rather than emote carefully in a vulnerable, domestic environment. They’re facing it, as the only way out!”