Re. the phrase "the beach":
I am increasingly wondering if Eldritch is using "the beach" as a metaphor for being on stage at a gig.
Firstly, there's the line on the official site:
This website contains ninety-seven million words, which are
"REDEMPTION" and "
BEACH"
...where the word BEACH links to the Live News page.
Secondly there's the similarities between a flat stage & roiling expense of the audience and the flat expanse of beach looking out over a
sea (of faces) (yes, I'm very deliberately quoting
Marian - I think this is where the metaphor first started to emerge, and
Marian reads quite interestingly when read this way, especially if you read sea/water/wave as the audience at a gig, or an over-demanding string of gigs, which IIRC, very much was the case in 84/85 when that song was developed).
Coupled with what
he said about BEACH in the interview with Mark Andrews, that points to a feeling of responsibility to tour and play gigs.
Eldritch also notes in that part of the interview that "it’s also about being stuck between worlds, not necessarily of one’s own volition", and a beach is certainly a liminal (and littoral) zone between the worlds of land and sea, comparable with the liminal state of touring, from city to city, hotel to hotel.
And so the line from the song - "we're believers in the bus" - becomes a tour bus (believing in the bus as a thing that must be done, and being believers inside the bus). Similarly all states (of mind) have a border, and there is a clear mental border between Eldritch performing at a gig (outside) and the more private person (inside)
As usual, I'm probably over-thinking things...