NEW YORK - Neil Young acknowledges that a lot of personal reflection went into his latest album — he recorded it in the days before he underwent surgery for a brain aneurysm.

Young, 59, told Time magazine he wrote the first song on "Prairie Wind" on his way to a Nashville studio after getting the news from his doctor earlier this year.

"Then I went back up to New York on Monday for a pre-surgery thing, flew back to Nashville, wrote and recorded (songs) four, five, six, seven, eight and most of nine and 10. And then I got admitted, and they put me under," he told Time.

Young says he would have made the album anyway but acknowledges his experiences in March shaped "Prairie Wind," due out Sept. 27. One song, "Falling Off the Face of the Earth," draws from a voicemail left by a friend who had heard about what Young was going through.

"I don't feel like I'm slowing down, but these things happen," Young said. "Yeah, there's a lot of reflection. It affected all the songs."