More recently, Mellencamp has been tackling the topic of race relations. The title track to 2001's "Cuttin' Heads" featured Chuck D. rapping about the word "nigger": "I connect the word with pain, now some smile when they scream the name?/ Die, N-word, die. I want to live."

The album's second song, the sweet-sounding single "Peaceful World," was equally blunt: "Racism lives in the U.S. today." Not exactly Top-40 fare. [Salon] The praise that comes from these positions is just the other side of the coin from the condemnation that came from the anti-war position: you can't be principled and not piss people off who don't share those principles.

Talk about people's reaction to "To Washington."

Initially I was surprised. My album wasn't going to come out for a few months and I had the song recorded so I put it up on my Web site and asked for people's comments. And there were some mean damn comments coming back.

How about today?

It's changed. Now they're almost totally in favor of the song. Because people are starting to realize, "Now wait a minute, what really happened in Iraq?" I see the climate changing tremendously. But when people hear those drums of war pounding, and Fox News is showing it on television, people got pretty riled up. People were afraid, and when people are afraid they make emotional decisions.

Did that include people in your hometown of Bloomington, Ind.?

When the song first came out I was in the car one day and we were driving to the airport and I had my kids with me and a radio station was playing "To Washington" and having callers call in. Some guy comes on and says, "I don't know who I hate the most, John Mellencamp or Osama bin Laden." My kids heard that and my 9-year-old said, "Dad, are they talking about you? Why are people mad at you?"

The rest of the interview is just John being John, it's cool enough, I like the guy - the real problem is with interviewer Eric Boehlert who seems more determined than most to lead his subject into controversy, virtually baiting him. It's clear where the agenda lies.