"The Red River still flows through my hometown, rollin' and tumblin' on its way," croons Neil Young in his fractured warble on Prairie Wind. "Swirlin' around the old bridge pilings, where a boy fishes the morning away."

Yep, it seems Winnipeg's favourite son is feeling a little nostalgic and homesick on his three dozenth album, due in stores Tuesday. And no wonder -- most of this disc was written and recorded as the 59-year-old singer-songwriter was being diagnosed and treated for a cerebral aneurysm this spring. If a brush with death doesn't make you think about your life and reconnect with your past, nothing will.

Of course, as local fans recall, Young's medical crisis also prevented his long-promised trip home to attend the Juno Awards in April. Think of this intimate set as something between a raincheck, a makeup offering and a love letter to his youth.

Although it was recorded in Nashville with a cast that includes Ben Keith on pedal steel, Spooner Oldham on Hammond B3 organ and Emmylou Harris offering backing vocals -- and even though it's said to be the last piece of a country-folk trilogy begun with 1972's Harvest and 1992's Harvest Moon -- Prairie Wind has plenty of resonance for the hometown crowd. As Young says on the title cut: "We're going back to Cypress River, back to the old farmhouse." He means it.

Most of these 10 moody songs are laced with wistful memories of innocent prairie youth: Trains pulling out of the station, the northern lights in winter, crunching through the snow, Canada geese filling the sky, walking down the TransCanada. From Young's current vantage point, it understandably seems like a dream: "It's fading now, fading away ... Just a memory without anywhere to stay."

Not coincidentally, the disc's musical landscape also has a homey feel, both in its rough-hewn acoustic approach and in its elegantly simple arrangements. Most cuts are gently strummed backporch folk sweetened with organ or strings. A couple dip a toe into rockier waters with quietly distorted guitars and gnarly roots-rock grooves left over from Greendale. A couple more flirt with Memphis soul horns and chunky honkytonk.

There's one gorgeous piano ballad and even the post-9/11 gospel hymn God Made Me, featuring the Fisk University Jubilee Singers. But nearly all of them have something in common: They are direct and open in their approach, with an unfussy, understated grace that mirrors the stark, ethereal beauty of the prairie where Young grew up -- and to which he longs to return for good. "Bury me out on the prairie where the buffalo used to roam," he asks. "Then I won't be far from home."

You got it, Neil. But before you come back for eternity, do you think you could make it back for a concert?

Track Listing:

1. Painter
2. No Wonder
3. Falling Off the Face of the Earth
4. Far From Home
5. It's A Dream
6. Prairie Wind
7. Here For You
8. This Old Guitar
9. He Was the King
10. When God Made Me