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Remember Amy Winehouse clutching at her mother and looking completely gobsmacked when her song Rehab won a Grammy in 2008 for record of the year? That's how I felt when I saw that M.I.A.'s Paper Planes was nominated for the same prize this time.

By any standard, this jaunty track has to be the most incendiary, political single ever to land on this particular shortlist. It's about illegal immigration, drug-running and child soldiering, three of the hottest hot-button issues going. And unlike most political songs, there's no conspicuous moral to the story. The cheerful chorus has a bunch of kids singing with samples of guns and a cash register: "All I wanna do is BANGBANGBANGBANG, and click, KA-CHING, and take your money."

Wow. I can't wait to hear a sound clip on the Grammy broadcast, shortly after the president's annual speech about the inspirational value of music education for today's youth.

"Some some some some I murder, some some some I let go," M.I.A. sings, in her disturbingly childlike way. This is not a rapper boasting about how tough he is. This is any kid who has ever been given a gun by the likes of Thomas Lubanga, the Congolese warlord who went on trial in The Hague last week for recruiting a battalion of child soldiers. This is the guy in Gaza or Colombia who kidnaps people on spec.

The eeriest thing about Paper Planes (which includes a sample from the Clash's fiercely political Straight to Hell) is the way M.I.A. floats between different flavours of the first person. She channels the voice of the drug addict and the hustler, the seller and buyer of faked visas, the fugitive getting stopped at borders or gliding around them, the kid holding on to a semi-automatic remnant of order in a failed state.

M.I.A. — real name: Mathangi (Maya) Arulpragasam — has some first-hand knowledge of these situations. Her family left Sri Lanka for London in a hurry when she was about 10, after her father's role in anti-government agitation made life too dangerous. His insurgent history came up when she was denied entry into the United States while trying to record Kala, the 2007 disc that includes Paper Planes. (She now lives in New York with her fiancé, singer Benjamin Brewer, eldest son of Edgar Bronfman Jr.)

Her two albums of masala hip hop are steeped in the social and political improvisations going on in what we used to call the Third World. "I'm knockin' on the doors of your Hummer Hummer," she chants in Bamboo Banga, another song from Kala. You won't find a pithier statement of the idea that the rich world is no longer insulated from the poor, and that a power shift from west to east and north to south was happening even before the current financial crisis.

So how did this woman and her uncomfortable music get a marquee nomination for a Grammy? Aside from the Dixie Chicks' Not Ready to Make Nice (about the clear-cut evil of censorship), nothing more political than Don Henley's The End of the Innocence (a 1990 song that took a swipe at former president Reagan) has even been nominated for record of the year.

Paper Planes earned some attention as a single, but took off into the mainstream only after it showed up in a trailer for the Seth Rogen film Pineapple Express. It got another boost when a DFA remix (one of several released on a Homeland Security Remixes EP) showed up on the soundtrack for Slumdog Millionaire, the small Mumbai film that recently took 10 Oscar nominations (including one for M.I.A.). The song has been covered by Rihanna, and a very recognizable sample from it is the basis for Swagga Like Us, an all-star rap track by T.I. (with Jay-Z, Lil Wayne and Kanye West) that's also up for two Grammys.

Those remixes, covers and secondary uses have driven a very diverse public toward the original source. The Paper Planes video has had well over 31 million hits on YouTube. That's pretty amazing for a still somewhat underground performer.

We don't know, of course, how many in Rogen's comedy audience have cottoned on to what this very catchy song is about. Presumably the Grammy committee paid closer attention, and still put it on the list for record of the year.

Good call, Grammy. Whether or not M.I.A. wins, Paper Planes is the record of the year. It concentrates more collective anxieties into 31/2 minutes of music than any song I know. "Runnin' when we hit 'em, a little poison for the system … "

Who should win, and who will win

Record of the year Paper Planes (M.I.A.) should win, Adele's Chasing Pavements has a good shot, but I suspect the Grammy will go to Please Read the Letter, Robert Plant's cuddly duet with Alison Krauss.!

Album of the year Radiohead's In Rainbows is the only nominee we'll be listening to in 10 years time, but Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III will win, 'cause !he's got the Big Mo — enough, probably, to win in most of his eight categories.!

Song of the year The most annoying single often wins, so Coldplay probably will with Viva la Vida, with Jason Mraz ( I'm Yours) and Estelle ( American Boy) as first and second runners-up.!

New artist Adele in a walk. If the Jonas Brothers take this, there's no God.!

Female pop vocal The Brit Adele again, unless America First sentiment seals it for Pink or (ugh) Katy Perry.!

Male pop vocal Kid Rock, John Mayer, Paul McCartney, Jason Mraz, Ne-Yo, James Taylor: I'm hiding my head under the !sofa cushions for this one.!

Dance Recording Lady Gaga takes it with Just Dance, 'cause her buzz is peaking right now. Other nominees (Rihanna's Disturbia, Daft Punk's Harder Better Faster Stronger, Hot Chip's Ready for the Floor) are stronger.!

Rock song: Radiohead's House of Cards should win . Bruce Springsteen ( Girls in Their Summer Clothes) or Coldplay ( Violet Hill) will probably win the trophy.!

Rock album: I choose Metallica ( Death Magnetic) for virtuosity, against Coldplay ( Viva la Vida) for seeming virtuous.!

Alternative album (Grammy has only one alt-music category, compared with seven for gospel): A hard toss-up between In !Rainbows and The Odd Couple (Gnarls Barkley).!

Female R&B vocal: Beyoncé ( Me, Myself and I) in a rematch against Dreamgirls co-star Jennifer Hudson ( Spotlight). The sympathy vote carries it for Hudson.!

Traditional R&B performance: Raphael Saadiq for Love That Girl. Saadiq's TheWay I See It disc loses a tight race for R&B album with another old-school project, Al Green's Lay It Down.!

Rap album: Lil Wayne whups jail hound T.I. ( Paper Trail), though Lupe Fiasco's The Cool is better than either.!

Classical album: Maria, by !Cecilia Bartoli, a great mezzo-soprano who knows her stuff in ways that many other singers can scarcely imagine.

R.E.G.

If they gave Grammys for weirdness, we'd nominate:

Most ridiculous nomination The Eagles, for I Dreamed There Was No War, a protest song done so half-assedly it has no lyrics.

Oldest nominee Blues pianist Pinetop Perkins, 95, was born two years after devil-collaborating guitarist Robert Johnson.

Sign the Grammys are overhyped Wednesday's broadcast of Katie Couric's All Access Grammy Special, in which Taylor Swift was unable to provide a single example of John McCain ever leading the charge for more Wall Street oversight.

Most annoyingly named producer Easily, will.i.am. Easily. "Can I come up with a goofy, Dr. Seuss-like handle? Yes I can!"

Song with the most writers Estelle's American Boy and the gospel tune You Reign, both with seven. (How 'bout a basketball game to settle the tie?)

Performances not to be missed Paul McCartney (with Dave Grohl on drums), Radiohead and the girl-kissing Katy Perry, who reportedly descends from the ceiling.

Award presented off-camera, the day before Jon Bon Jovi, the best-hair winner for 14 straight years, shockingly loses out to the Jonas Brothers' plush eyebrows.

Brad Wheeler