This Salon Talks video was produced by Alexandra Clinton

The indie folksinger Ani DiFranco, whostarted out performing in coffeehouses as a teen in the late 80s, has long beena feminist icon. She sings of love, pacifism,reproductive rights and progressive politicson her 20th album Binary,released earlier this month. For arecent episode of Salon Talks, she described herjourney as an independent musician in a world of big-media suits.

How does poetry play into the writing?

I was into poetry asa little kid, when I first learned about it in school. The whole idea of distilling language and making it communicate beyond its borders just really interested me. A little bit later I picked up the guitar and started getting into music and songwritingand so that the poetry fetish kind of found its natural extension through song. But Ive always continued to write poems just as poems, too, because its a very different sort of beast than songs.

I love the music of language. Evenbefore I was making songs just the music of the way we speak, the prosody . . . the musicality, the music of prose, the melody.

Im all about that in my writing, trying to echo the music of how we speak in a song so you can really feel it being spoken to you.

Whats the message of thenew song Play God?

That song really comes from a place of trying to frame reproductive freedom as a civil right.. . . Theres a whole area of unfinished business in civil rights that apply only to women, and we just seem to not even have that language yet that can sort of help us to put it in the realm where Ithink it belongs.

The song is just trying to talk about how women are much more deeply informed about reproduction and creation and how death is a part of life. I think every menstruation teaches us that. We spin dark every time because theres death involved, whether that egg is fertilized or not. Ive had several abortions. Ive given birth to several children. Ive had a miscarriage.

Like any woman, I think I know more than a man what it all means, so I think that I should be given that respect.

Catch more of DiFranco on Salon abouther latest album, musical inspiration and civil rights.

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WATCH: Ani DiFranco demands reproductive freedom as a civil right - Salon