http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/story/0,20797,18478041-5003421,00.html

Pink sticks it to Bush

PINK is no stranger to making enemies. Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera long dumped her from their Christmas card lists. But she's about to make one very powerful enemy: George W. Bush.

Pink's new album, I'm Not Dead, contains a song called Dear Mr President which pushes her First Amendment rights to the limit.

It's an open letter to Dubya; where she imagines talking to him one on one, quizzing him about the homeless, overflowing prisons, single mothers and unemployment.

"What do you feel when you look in the mirror?," Pink sings. "Are you proud? "How do you sleep while the rest of us cry? How do you walk with your head held high?"

She notes of his past: "You've come a long way from whisky and cocaine."

"It might cause some problems, but (my record company) are used to that with me," Pink says.

In an increasingly homogenic world of look-good, say-nothing pop, it's a brave statement to put out there.

"It shouldn't be, but I guess it is," Pink says. "I guess what happened to the Dixie Chicks (who received death threats after speaking out against George W. Bush) really spooked everyone. Luckily country radio doesn't really support my career. I don't know why, I'm so country."

Pink says the folk protest song, recorded with her heroes, The Indigo Girls, came out nearly fully formed in a creative burst.

"When I wrote it, it was Martin Luther King Day, I was feeling pretty political and angry and I'd just read the New York Times and five minutes later the song came out. It's one of my favourite songs I've done, ever."

As well as spoiling for a fight with the President, Stupid Girls, the first single from Pink's new album, looks set to reignite some girl-on-girl feuding, taking a scattergun approach to lampooning the present swag of female pop stars and celebs.

In a video for the song Pink is sporting an almost radioactive fake tan as she parades in a faux sex video a la Paris Hilton, knocks over pedestrians while driving a la the vehicularly challenged Lindsay Lohan and looks like a starved Olsen sister in boho chic.

She also re-creates the infamous "washing a car in a bikini" soft-**** scene from Jessica Simpson's These Boots Are Made For Walkin' video.

The parodies are spot-on and far from subtle, but Pink doesn't care.

"I've never really been that good at making friends. Why start now?," she says. "I can count my close friends on my two hands and have fingers left over and I'd like to keep it that way. There's things that need to be said and I'll gladly say them."

There is a serious message behind the humorous clip, with Pink expressing disgust at the party/shop/party lifestyle of today's youth.

"I can't believe how far backwards women are going," she says.

"(But) we're not all like that. That's my point, here's a choice, here's something different. A lot of people are going to be upset, but what can you do? That's how you promote change."

Pink filmed 17 different vacuous characters for the video, a fact she finds depressing. "What's worse is that if we'd had another day I could have had 24. There's a lot of inspiration out there to work with," she says.

I'm Not Dead, her fourth album, is an important one for the singer.

Her 2001 debut, Can't Take Me Home, introduced her as a brash R&B starlet. Next she tried to sabotage that success by releasing 2001's Missundaztood, a deliberately spiky rock album she co-wrote with another childhood hero, Linda Perry. Before teaming with Pink, Perry (4 Non Blondes) was seen as washed up. Afterwards she again became a hot songwriter for hire who has written with Christina Aguilera and Gwen Stefani.

Pink rewrote the rules again on her third album, Try This (2003); using yet another childhood hero, punk rocker Tim Armstrong of Rancid, as the main songwriter. The record stiffed in the US, although a string of typically diverse hits (Trouble, God is a DJ, Last to Know) registered in the UK and Australia.

A world tour, with her hits performed in chronological order (and a blow-up doll of Aguilera assaulted during Lady Marmalade) also bypassed the US.

While Missundaztood sold 12 million copies globally, Try This only managed (a still respectable) four million and Trouble was the only song from the album to chart in the US Top 100, and it peaked at No. 68.

"That record provided such a good time for me," Pink says of the Try This period. "It wasn't about a chart-topping feeding frenzy, it was about fulfilling things I want out of this career. And I pretty much got all that out of my system, which is good. I don't think it was a disaster at all, it was awesome. I got my Grammy out of it (for Trouble)."

I got to perform Trouble on the American Music Awards, I've always wanted to perform one of my songs on an award show like that instead of (a) Janis Joplin (cover) all the time."

Between albums Pink dabbled in the movie world. The Janis Joplin biopic she was attached to is on hold: "at this point I've let it go back into the universe, if it comes back to me that's great if not there's other things out there."

However she stars in looming psychological thriller Catacombs, playing Shannyn Sossamon's sister.

"She's the most gorgeous girl in the world," Pink says. "The first day I wanted to go home, I wanted to kick a wall and get the first flight out of there. But I got more comfortable. I know that out of the 50 scenes I'm in at least one of them is really good. See, I think my speaking voice is really irritating so that was a big leap for me to take, speaking on film. It was even more vulnerable than singing, because I know I'm good at that."

Her latest album, too, refuses to follow any formula. One track, I Have Seen the Rain, is actually a duet with her father, Jim Moore.

"He's like a Paul Simon that never happened, such a folk star," she says.

Her dad wrote the song while serving in Vietnam and she's been singing it since she was four – stating it's how she learnt to harmonise.

They have sung the song at Vietnam Vet rallies, but he'd never recorded it.

"I knew he never would have so I said 'Come on, we're going in the studio'," Pink says.

"He got such a kick out of it. If there was a picture in the dictionary next to proud and beaming it would be my dad's face after he heard that song. He just thought we'd record it and play it to our friends. I told him 'It's going on my record'. He thought I was joking until I said, 'No, sign this'."

It tops off an incredibly personal record (including self-love ode Fingers).

And while her list of musical collaborators grows, there is still one man Pink can't convince to jump on her bandwagon – Billy Joel.

"He said, 'I don't do pop music any more' and I said 'But you're so good at it!' "

So great is her respect for the piano man, Pink even walked down the aisle to Joel's She's Always a Woman when she married long-time boyfriend, motocross rider Carey Hart in Costa Rica in January.

"I always thought Billy Joel wrote that song for me, then I realised he didn't know who I was. And I probably wasn't even born when he wrote it," she laughs.

Pink infamously proposed to Hart during a motorcross trial.

"He was in a bike race and I pit boarded for him and I wrote 'Will You Marry Me?' (on a board) and he almost killed a guy running off the track to come and get me. It was very sweet."

The pair got matching rings - "they've got 'Til Death' scrolled on them, it's kinda punk rock and cool" - and while they got matching tattoos "ages ago" Hart is getting Pink's name on his body. Again. "Carey has my name tattooed all over his body.I don't do that!"

The wedding was a quiet gathering (friends including Lisa Marie Presley were there - "she's so ****ing crazy, our personalities match well," Pink says) and the singer admits she was as surprised as anyone that she did a big wedding, with many fashion mags commenting on how traditional her dress was.

"It's something I never thought I'd do. But the whole wedding thing is important. I had my princess vision! There's a very traditional, boring girl inside of me screaming to get out. It's just that most of the time I don't let her."

thanx for the info

thanks lil

oh yeah i like PINK ...lol
**runs to add PINK to Queensofrock...lol**

*~thanx 4 posting~*

Very cool article