In 2019, nearly half a century later, the notion of a society gone insane feels realer than ever, and the desire to tune out or bury ourselves in distraction has never been stronger—or at least, that’s what Instagram influencers and Netflix culture and the endless cavalcade of baffling new Taco Bell menu items would suggest. In the decades to come following On the Beach's release, there would be more murders, more cults, more war, 9/11, powerful rapists, racist presidents. We would become desensitized to watching dozens of innocent people being gunned down in schools, places of worship, even music venues. But if there's anything we owe ourselves, it's the right to mourn our own innocence, or at least the innocence we once saw in the world. (Perhaps that's why Young recently played "On the Beach" live for the first time in 16 years.) There's a fourth-wall-breaking line in "Ambulance Blues" that goes, “It’s hard to say the meaning of this song." We can't blame ourselves for searching for meaning, even when that search often feels fruitless.