Singer Melissa Etheridge beat a bout of breast cancer and says she used that experience as the inspiration to write a new album free from commercial pressures or concerns about producing hits.

Etheridge made her name in the late 1980s and 1990s with gutsy songs about matters of the heart. But on her ninth album, “The Awakening,” she criticizes the Iraq war and sings songs reflecting her roles as an environmentalist, gay rights activist and Democratic Party supporter.

“I called my record company and said, you know what? I am going to turn something in and if you want to release it, great, if not fine,” she said in an interview.

“I basically came out of cancer and said I should only do what I love.”

Etheridge, 46, is best known for singing and playing guitar on raw-sounding hits including “I’m the Only One” and “Come to My Window” and “I Want To Come Over.” Her latest effort is her first album since 2004, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer and announced in 2005 she was cancer-free.

Her new attitude has impressed some early reviewers. Rolling Stone magazine said the album has more depth than her previous work and that “her illness means she’s earned the right to explore the big picture.”

Indeed, Etheridge wants her legacy to go beyond music.

On the eve of her latest album launch this week, she dined with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, whose documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” featured a global warming anthem by Etheridge that won an Academy Award this year.

Last month, she was one of four panelists who posed questions to Democrats running for the White House in a nationally televised debate sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign that dealt partly with same sex marriage and other issues important to the gay and lesbian community.

“I would like to be known as a good American. Someone who really believes in the dream of democracy,” she told Reuters this week. “I would like people to say ‘Oh, she really believes in American people — and she wrote some good songs too.”‘

After her cancer scare, media attention turned to the birth of twins last year with actress Tammy Lynn Michaels fathered with the help of an unidentified sperm donor. She also has two children with her former partner Julie Cypher, fathered with the help of sperm donor, rock singer David Crosby.

But Etheridge says her stance on gay rights is more about honesty than being an outspoken lesbian.

“I think we all understand that you can’t put the genie back in the bottle and that we are here and that gay people get born every day just like everybody else. It is not going to go away,” she said.

Reuters