After scoring the biggest hit of her career with "Trouble," off 2003's Try This, Pink decided to hibernate for a while. "I took time off, which I'd never done before," she says.

The result? About forty potential songs for her fourth album, I'm Not Dead, due April 4th, which the rocker's been recording in Los Angeles. "I thought I had nothing to say," she says, "then they had to shut me up."

On her topic list: young Hollywood ("Stupid Girls"), bling ("Cuz I Can") and George W. Bush ("Dear Mr. President"), with whom she takes issue on homelessness, prison overcrowding, abortion and gay rights.

Musically, Pink and writer-producers Billy Mann (Try This' dance hit "God Is a DJ"), Max Martin (Britney Spears) and Butch Walker (Avril Lavigne) keep the guitars loud and the beats heavy on the possible singles but allow room for sparse acoustic tracks that showcase Pink's voice.

On "I Have Seen the Rain," a song written by Pink's father during the Vietnam War, she treads surprisingly close to Joan Baez territory. "I used to perform it with him at veteran functions," she says. "[And] it's still relevant today because we're producing vets by the thousands."

Ironically, says Pink, "He's a staunch Republican. What can I say? I'm a walking conflict."

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