Etheridge
discusses documentary score

The personal threat of global warming was what motivated lesbian musician Melissa Etheridge to pen the title song "I Need to Wake Up" for the Al Gore documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, she said Tuesday.

"This was a very special opportunity for me," Etheridge said, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "I had just been through my own special awakening, after being diagnosed with breast cancer. After that, when my perspective and my life had changed, I realized that I am not on an island."

Etheridge, Oliver Stone, World Trade Center composer Craig Armstrong and his music supervisor Budd Carr, sat on a panel at the Hollywood Reporter/Billboard Film & TV Music Conference.

Etheridge said that her personal struggle to address the depth of global warming motivated her to write the song. She said she eventually wrote the song after her partner asked her to simply write how she was feeling.

"What [would] I want to hear?" Etheridge said. "I want to hear somebody else who feels the way I feel, which is 'My God, have I been sleeping?'" (The Advocate)