Neil Young’s ‘On the Beach’ still haunts the American Dream half a century later

First, a quick word about what this column is all about. The big idea here at Common Chords is simple: All music is connected.

Over the course of this series, we’re going to try to prove it — not with charts or genre tags, but with vibes, guitar tones, and emotional through-lines that make sense if you’ve ever cried at a Replacements song or accidentally fell in love while listening to a bootleg Dead show.

We’re starting with Neil Young, because frankly, where else can you start? The man’s been on an eternal genre walkabout for six decades: folk, garage rock, country, noise experiments, protest ballads, proto-grunge, synth-pop, whatever Trans was, and, yes, Everybody’s Rockin’, which is either the worst album ever made or the most elaborate prank ever pulled on Geffen Records. Probably both.

Neil’s influence is inescapable, not because of any one sound, but because of the way he’s always moved toward discomfort. A standard that he upholds, which we will utilize to screen future artists, is this: he believes in every word he sings. You can question his belief system, but not his commitment. 

Born in Toronto in 1945, Young first gained prominence as a member of Buffalo Springfield in the 1960s, then as a key part of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, before launching a prolific and genre-defying solo career that continues to this day. For Gen Z readers, you may have only recently been introduced to Neil via trending TikTok audio, and frankly, we, particularly Wendell G., are quite jealous that you have so much of his catalogue to discover. 

Good times are coming, but they sure are coming slow 

If Tonight’s the Night is Neil Young breaking down in public and Harvest is him trying to hold it together for the masses, then his 5th solo album, On the Beach, is the moment he slinks out a side door, barefoot, glassy-eyed, and muttering something about the CIA and The Beach Boys. And that’s precisely where its power lies.

Some might call this Neil’s “vibes album,” in the way it operates like a psychic transmission from the murkiest corner of his California malaise (aka his “Ditch Period”). You don’t listen to On the Beach so much as soak in it. It’s the sound of the 1970s turning sour in real time: a sunburned postcard from Laurel Canyon’s morning-after, with the smell of stale beer and cigarette smoke lingering in the air.

On the Beach is like walking into a party where everyone’s already bummed out, but no one’s leaving. And you don’t either, because it turns out the bummer is the point. This is Neil in a denim tuxedo with a bad back and a good weed hookup, working through the psychic hangover of success, death, and disillusionment. There’s no romanticism here. No hand-holding. Just Young muttering secrets into a dying campfire, hoping the waves don’t hear.

“Ambulance Blues” alone earns the album its cultish devotion—eight minutes of gnarled acoustic guitar, harmonica, and a weary voice lurching toward epiphany. If you squint, you can almost hear Neil inventing indie rock as we know it. Pavement? Beck? Kurt Vile? All standing on the beach, quietly passing him the joint.

But what makes On the Beach such an enduring artifact isn’t just its darkness—it’s how specific that darkness feels. “Motion Pictures” is a breakup song where the enemy is modernity itself. “Revolution Blues” turns Charles Manson into a stand-in for the festering decay underneath the counterculture dream. 

Yet, in that broken-down Mazda 6 series of a mood, Neil still finds a weird, woolly comfort. Maybe it’s the melancholy sounds from the electric Wurlitzer piano. Maybe it’s the irony of songs so paranoid being so inviting. Either way, you’re stuck in the car with him, and it’s too late to get out.

The album artwork visually amplifies the feelings of burnout, signaling a generation in retreat. He is shoeless with his back to the camera, as he just can’t watch any more. There’s a Chevrolet tailfin, sticking out of the sand like a buried relic of 1950s consumerist idealism. There’s even a newspaper with a headline calling for Nixon’s resignation evoking his epic 1970 protest classic. But while “Ohio” was the righteous fury of a young man, the newspaper on On the Beach is the exhausted shrug of an older one.

Undeniably, this is not Young’s most accessible album, but it may be his most essential. It’s the one you find when you’re finally ready to stop pretending everything’s fine. We can’t think of many things that sum up 2025 better than that, as the disillusionment, political instability, and cultural reckoning parallels between 1974 and now are beyond uncanny. 

Put it on at 2 a.m., and it makes perfect sense. Put it on at noon, and it ruins your day — in a good way. 

You might hear a song from On the Beach playing over the PA system after a touring Americana band has just wrapped up their set at The EARL or Eddie’s Attic, and the crowd heads for the turnstiles. Or a hip friend in Grant Park might host a vinyl-only listening night with On the Beach as the headliner, as you sip whiskey on a screened-in porch while cicadas hum (just say no to honey slides!) Unfortunately, while he isn’t coming to Atlanta on this US tour, you will be able to catch him in Charlotte on August 8, which is the nearest concert on this run of shows.

Megan’s favorite song on the album is “Ambulance Blues”. As someone whose all-time favorite Neil Young song is “Sugar Mountain” due to the achingly painful nostalgia it induces, this track strikes a similar chord. The first verse paints a picture of a place he yearns for, yet can never return to.

You can hear his somber remembrance of Isabella Street, the home of Young’s now-demolished apartment where he lived as a teen. In the next verse, Young admits: “It’s hard to say the meaning of this song”, as the lines start to bleed together like chicken-scratch ideas he jotted down on a pocket notepad. Maybe the meaning, if any, is to just observe and not interpret. 

Wendell’s favorite song on the album is “Revolution Blues”. The image of a haunting Manson-ish character driving through the ruins of the hippie dream in a stolen car, muttering manifestos to himself while the sun sets in toxic orange, is simply irresistible. Plus it has an absolutely sinister bass line from Rich Danko and jittery drumming from Levon Helm, his friends from The Band, who make special appearances on this track. 

Neil Young is now available on all streaming platforms — as his more than two-year Spotify boycott ended in March of last year — and wherever classic records are sold. You could also find his songs played on SiriusXM stations Deep Tracks, Classic Vinyl, and The Bridge. And for those wanting to go super deep into Neil’s world, download the Neil Young Archives app, which is available on both iOS and Android platforms.