2000 Great Songs #1504: On Some Faraway Beach

November 04, 2026

2000 Great Songs #1504: On Some Faraway Beach

Brian Eno's first solo album after leaving Roxy Music, 1974's Here Come The Warm Jets, is one of the all time great just-left-the-band debuts (at least as great as the first Peter Gabriel album and the initial rash of former Beatles releases). It's eclectic to a fault, from glam to prog to proto-punk; but my favorite track on the record takes a pass on the album's overall weirdness. "On Some Faraway Beach" is one of the most beautiful things Eno ever recorded, introducing the ambient balladry he'd pick up again on the title track of the album which followed a few months later, Taking Tiger Mountain, and really mine on 1975's Another Green World and the second half of 1977's Before And After Science.

The track takes its own sweet time warming up, nearly three minutes of a simple piano ballad with some lush orchestration and vocal choir, Eno's voice eventually surfacing and adding an entire new level of beauty to the song. I view the song as a forerunner of Science's "Spider & I"; both have an indescribable cinematic sweep, conjuring in my mind the solitude of some sort of post-apocalyptic oceanside wasteland. (And like that song, it's the perfect album-closer, though it's weirdly tucked into the center of the album--which isn't to say the title track doesn't make sense as a closer as well, but something about the song, and even that odd piano coda, seems to demand a little silence when it's over.)

That's just me; plug in some headphones, and see where it takes you.