Mellencamp Fights Authority. Again.

John Mellencamp hopes to rock the boat, not miss it.

With his new untitled folk-styled album not set to hit stores until May 20, the heartland rocker is trying to get permission from his label to get a new antiwar song written for the record released ASAP--before the U.S. launches its impending invasion of Iraq.

Mellencamp's afraid that by the time the album comes out, the war will be over, since military action against Saddam Hussein's regime is nearly a foregone conclusion and likely to occur within the coming weeks. To that end, he's is in talks with Columbia Records to make "To Washington" available on his Website, Mellencamp.com, in time to make a difference.

In the song, the 51-year-old "Pop Singer" pays homage to Woody Guthrie's ditty "From Baltimore to Washington" by offering up a scathing critique of President Bush's motivations for war.

"He wants to fight with many/And he says it's not for oil/He sent out the National Guard/To police the world/From Baghdad to Washington," go the lyrics.

Mr. "I Fight Authority/Authority Always Wins" is no stranger to political messages in his work. Both Presidents Reagan and Bush the Elder tried to coopt Mellencamp's working-class anthem "Pink Houses," with the refrain "Ain't that America," for their respective campaigns, but he turned them down.

He has frequently addressed the plight of Midwest farmers in his songs and as an organizer of Farm Aid, and he recently embarked on a Good Samaritan Tour where he offered free acoustic performances in major downtown public squares. He also has said he has a basic distrust of politicians.

Speaking to the New York Times this week from his home studio in Indiana, Mellencamp said, "I don't really have an opinion in the song, I'm just stating what I believe to be fact.

"That line about the National Guard, I know some of those guys. They don't want to fight Iraq, they just wanted to make some extra money. Every other weekend they went to an armory in Indiana and played cards."

Mellencamp also says his Website might be the best chance he has to get his opinions aired.

"There's no radio station that's going to play that song," Mellencamp added. "Guys like myself are not really heavily on the playlists any more. I don't want to be bound to any format anymore, I don't think it's my job to sit around and worry about what a teenager might want to hear."

While the details have yet to be worked out, according to Mellencamp's publicist, the song will likely be made available for free via streaming or MP3 download.

His new album, meanwhile, finds the "Jack and Diane" crooner returning to his roots with a collection of folk, blues and country tunes that also includes covers of Robert Johnson, Howlin' Wolf and Skeeter Davis.

Mellencamp is the latest musician to hop on the antiwar bandwagon. David Byrne, Lou Reed and Def Jam founder Russell Simmons recently banded together in New York to unveil their new protest group, Musicians United to Win Without War. The group took out a full-page ad in the New York Times reading "War on Iraq is wrong and we know it," which was signed by the likes of Sheryl Crow, Fugazi and Jay-Z.

Madonna and George Michael each have recorded an antiwar song, and Coldplay made a point of dissing Bush's war plans during the Brit Awards last month.

Senegalese singer Youssou N'Dour on Friday canceled his seven-week tour of North America to express his opposition.

And Yusuf Islam, the man formerly known as pop singer Cat Stevens, is working on two protest songs, the first a new rendition of his '70s hit "Peace Train" and the other a recording called "Angel of War," a retooling of his melancholy ballad "Lady D'Arbanville."

Several actors, including Sean Penn, Martin Sheen and Susan Sarandon, have also spoken out against military action. The Screen Actors Guild, fearing such stances might provoke reprisals from unsympathetic Hollywood suits, issued a statement urging producers, studios and networks not to blacklist the thesps.

Others artists, however, have taken a stand in favor of war. Ted Nugent and country star Charlie Daniels have both posted angry rants against antiwar celebrities on their own Websites and come out in support of Bush, as has Sheen's costar (and former Republican senator) Fred Thompson.