40. Neil Young

Recorded in Nashville after Neil Young's near-fatal brain aneurysm, Prairie Wind is a son-of-Harvest bouquet of steel guitar, dusty strumming and songs about mortality and responsibility. Embedded in Young's warm, fragile voice and his nostalgic images of Canadian geese and the iron horse are hard truths about wrong turns taken ("The Painter") and time running low ("No Wonder"). In the final hymn, "When God Made Me," Young ponders intelligent design and the thin line between our capacity for error and wisdom. The lyrics are in the form of questions -- "Did he create just me in his image/Or every living thing?" -- because life, short as it is, is for finding answers.

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