Ry Cooder's new album, Election Special, is due out in just over a week on Perro Verde / Nonesuch Records. The album is a wake-up call as the United States heads into the 2012 Presidential election. Cooder recently spoke with the Guardian's Caspar Llewellyn Smith for a candid interview touching on a wide range of issues, including the Republican party and its presumptive Presidential nominee, Mitt Romney; corporate influence on the political system and the world at large; the power of music to affect change, from Woody Guthrie to the 1960s protest movement to his own current collection of songs written for a very different time; and the urgency of making an impact now.

"This right now is the time of decision in this country," says Cooder. "There's no other way to look at it. This is it."

He goes on to explain the role he hopes his music might play, giving voice to a perspective that might otherwise go unheard on crucial issues of the day.

"[W]hat I'm trying to do with these little songs I write is say: let's look at this a different way. I don't write books and give speeches but with a four-minute song you can use allegory and other means to suggest a different point of view," Cooder tells the Guardian. "I want to say something because I think you should if you can. It's challenging, but it's fun. I like to write these songs. I mean, yeah, otherwise what are you going to do, pound your fist on the table? That's no good. Then they win big time because they got you cornered. Music is the way that I know. It's the thing I have."

There's much more in the interview, which you can read in full at guardian.co.uk.

For more on Ry Cooder's Election Special, click here.