I’M NOT DEAD

Philadelphia is the American city where the Declaration of Independence was signed, the Liberty Bell resides and the first American flag was made. Fitting then, that Philadelphia should also be the birthplace of America’s most controversial and innovative popular artist.
Pink is someone who dares to try new things, even if she risks falling on her face. The crazy, piss-takey party chick with 20-odd tattoos and great hair who was married in Costa Rica earlier this year to motocross star Carey Hart in a blissfully romantic ceremony. Who wants to push herself and branch out. Who sometimes takes the mickey out of herself to distract attention from more serious stuff going on elsewhere.
Perhaps this is what attracted the directors of forthcoming horror-flick ‘Catacombs’ to Pink when they offered her a lead role after a lunch in Los Angeles. “We didn’t even talk about the movie. Next thing I’m on a plane to Bucharest thinking ‘what if I suck?’”. During the shoot she was “kicking the walls in frustration, crying, wailing that I wanted to go home… A huge learning experience…” she nods soberly. Did she understand why they’d picked her, almost completely untried as an actress? “The part was pretty much written for someone who could be cruel and tough. Well,” says Pink with a grin and a shrug, “there you go”.
No doubt the directors recognised in the 23 million album-selling, double Grammy-winning artist someone who knows how to engage with an audience. A boundary-pusher whose songs, videos and personality speak loudly of a character way more interesting, rounded, flawed and real than any of her peers.
On her new, fourth album, ‘I’m Not Dead’, Pink takes her trademark honesty and genre-hopping, and runs with them – hard and fast. “This album is a product of my own experience. I don’t hang out with celebrities. I hang out with real, nine-to-five people. My family are real working-class people. I’m very much in tune… I don’t sit holed up in my mansion with my poodles and think everything’s fine. I like to stir things up, create dissent, create discussion and highlight the ridiculousness of it all.”. Executively produced by Pink, each track is produced and written by Pink alongside Billy Man, Max Martin and Dr Luke. Also collaborating on the album are Butch Walker, Mike Elizondo and the Indigo Girls.
The first single, ‘Stupid Girls’, lampooning designer handbag-carrying, scantily-clad bimbos, has already kicked up plenty of dust. Harry Potter author JK Rowling has called the song “The antidote-anthem for everything I had been thinking about women and thinness.” Furthermore – a must-be world record 8.6 million people downloaded the video from the internet before the single was officially released.
Opening song ‘U + Ur Hand’ is a party song with cool nods to Salt ‘n’ Pepa’s ‘Push It’ and Toni Basil’s ‘Mickey’. It was written with Swedish hitmaker Max Martin, as was ‘Cuz I Can’, a dancefloor electro-glam monster ripe for remix treatment.
There is also some of the soul-baring honesty on ‘I’m Not Dead’ that made Pink’s second album ‘Missundstood’ a worldwide, 16 million-selling phenomenon. That album’s ‘Family Portrait’ was a searing depiction of the break-up of her parents’ marriage when she was a child. On ‘I’m Not Dead’ she proves herself unafraid to lift the lid on her troubled emotional past again. ‘Long Way To Happy’ is an intense recollection of childhood abuse, based on a poem she wrote in her journal when she was 13.
“I keep all my journals because every time I start a new album I think I have nothing to contribute to the world and I think I suck and what if I can’t sing and black, blah blah blah,” says Pink. She writes in her journal to this day, and carries the old ones round with her. On her first day in the studio with new collaborator Butch Walker she was going through them. “It’s always hard when you meet somebody knew to be like, ‘hey, here’s my blood, taste it, let’s work together!’” she cackles. But she let Walker read the poem Long Way To Happy, and he insisted they turn it into a song.
Is the cliché true – that by discussing these old emotional issues, closure comes? “Yep,” says Pink. Her brother Jason came to see her once in concert in Dallas. She dedicated ‘Family Portrait’ to him. “He was in the tenth row, and I was onstage and we were both sharing a moment. After I wrote that song I was happier, and I was happier after my parents heard it… Unfortunately it’s like five minutes,” she says breezily. “You write a song and you’re like, f*** that felt really good. I’m glad I got that out. Then your family hear it and they’re like [wails] ‘I can’t believe you were so affected!’ And they wanna talk about it for months. I’m like, it’s done! But anyway. It’s over. ‘Long Way to Happy’ is out there. Somebody somewhere will relate to it. and I wont’ feel so embarrassed to talk about it.”
There’s another new song that was trickier to discuss with her parents, specifically her dad. Jim Moore is a Vietnam veteran. In another of ‘I’m Not Dead’’s intriguing departures, he and his daughter duet on ‘I Have Seen The Rain’, a folksy song he wrote while serving. Pink remembers singing the song as a kid with her dad at veterans’ rallies. But this father-daughter rapprochement hasn’t come so easily with regards to ‘Dear Mr President’. It’s a bitter, biting, acoustic lament, sung with cult duo The Indigo Girls, in which Pink wonders how George W Bush sleeps. “Let me tell you about hard work, minimum wage with a baby on the way… rebuilding your house after the bombs took them away… building a bed out of a cardboard box.”
She first played ‘Dear Mr President’ to her dad on the day they recorded ‘I Have Seen The Rain’. Its politics didn’t fit with Dad’s.
‘My poor husband Carey!’ sighs Pink. ‘He’s such a sweet guy, he’s so passive. And he had to be there during a lot of interesting conversations between me and my dad. He’s not used to father and daughter being brutally honest. Meaning, “Go f*** yourself!” “No, you go f*** yourself!” And, “f*** you I’m not coming home!” And the whole thing…’
But in the end Jim Moore respected his daughter’s freedom to say what she thought. That, to Pink, was approbation enough. “It’s a questioning, provocative song. It’s not a flag-waving, ‘you’re a f*** up and you suck’ anthem. This is how I feel, these are some issues, they’re not theoretical questions, they probably could use some answers, for the whole world, and here you go.”
Perhaps the political spirit of Philadelphia has rubbed off on its most flamboyant daughter? “I had an awakening”, says Pink, “There’s so much happening in the world, so many reasons to take the blinders off“. On a socially-political level, Pink certainly intends to put more effort in, hence her active support of PETA. “I guess I’ve pretty much done everything I wanted to do since I was six years old, but now I’m 26, my goals have completely changed” she says, “Every year I care a little bit less about my drama and a little bit more about the world. As far as the tabloids go, I’ve done it all. But as far as the world, I’ve done nothing. So far…”.
Pink has always gone her own way. Her first album, ‘Can’t Take Me Home’, was a poppy R&B confection, a route the teenage Pink was forced down by her record label. It didn’t fit her. So for Missundaztood she sought out Linda Perry, the feisty former songwriter with 4 Non Blondes known for her uncompromising tactics in the studio and for writing ‘Beautiful’ for Christina Aguilera. Together they came up with thumping big pop songs, but also lacerating personal ones like ‘Family Portrait’. The 16m sales were a surprise to everyone. For ‘Try This’ she shifted gears once more, collaborating with Tim Armstrong of punk band Rancid.
And for ‘I’m Not Dead’, Pink has swerved again. It’s her most diverse, complete, exciting and, yes, grown-up album yet. What does she think the legion of young fans who flocked to her will make of the political and socially-aware content?
“Teenagers know what the hell’s going on!’ insists Pink. “I raised a daughter once - my ex-boyfriend had a three year old when I met him and I raised her till she was nine. And when she was six she knew more than my parents think I know at 26. So! I don’t buy that s*** - [airy fairy] ‘oh, 16 year olds don’t know what the hell’s going on.’ Please: 16 year olds are reading the newspaper, they’re politicised.”
Plain-speaking, never condescending, always provocative, always painfully honest, full of great songs. No wonder Pink’s a global superstar.