No. 93

Down By The River - Neil Young (1969) Video - The story of a man catching his woman cheating on him, meets her by the river and shoots her, Neil Young wrote this while nursing 103-degree fever in the California desert. The song runs as short as 4 minutes and as long as 31 minutes live. The version I fell in love with ran about 9 minutes, but never seems to lag.

Probably my favorite songwriter of all-time, probably only equaled by Dylan, Neil Young makes up for his lack of vocal prowess (Neil Patrick Harris on How I Met Your Mother said it best, "I can't hear you talking with this old woman singing") by penning some of the most beautiful and poignant songs in rock history.

Having served as a major influence for many of today's top rock artists, Young has managed to stay in the public eye by performing intermittently with Dave Matthews Band and Pearl Jam (who refer to him as Uncle Neil). Additionally, he's been a proponent for alternative fuels, reengineering his 1959 Lincoln Continental to get 100 mpg (Letterman).