Blake Shelton Shares Powerful ‘I Won’t Back Down’ Cover in Support of Afghan Girls Group

For a noble cause, Blake Shelton contributes his strong vocals to a Tom Petty classic.  It’s in a new video, which highlights the Miraculous Love Kids, Afghanistan’s only music school.

This benefit version of “I Won’t Back Down” also features several Rock & Roll Hall of Famers, like guitarist Joe Walsh, bassist Timothy B. Schmidt (each from the Eagles), and drummer Matt Sorum from Guns N’ Roses.

“I Won’t Back Down” has been a fan-favorite anthem of defiance and independence, since its 1989 release.  But when Lanny Cordola, the American founder and director of the Miraculous Love Kids, began working with women and girls who face oppression in their home country, the song took on a powerful meaning.

Cordola explains in a press release:  “It’s not only for the girls and women of Afghanistan, but for all oppressed people of the world.  As Tom Petty so powerfully wrote, ‘You can stand me up at the gates of hell but I won’t back down.’”