Published
Prairie Wind
The album’s songs find Young pondering his own mortality, as he was undergoing treatment for an aneurysm during the album’s production. Songs were also inspired by the extended illness of his father, Canadian sportswriter and novelist Scott Young, who passed a few weeks after the album was completed. The album is dedicated in part to the elder Young.
The record was regarded by Robert Christgau as “one of those nearness-of-death albums”, along with Mississippi John Hurt’s Last Sessions (1972), Bob Dylan’s Time Out of Mind (1997), Warren Zevon’s The Wind (2003), and Johnny Cash’s American VI: Ain’t No Grave (2010).