Shania Twain's Personal Best

SHANIA TWAIN: This was really the country song that launched me into what would become a very pop career. It’s such a rocky track but with a country stomp, a true hybrid song, and it had all the attitude that I would continue to put into the music I was writing.

I was putting my foot down, putting all that sass into the lyrics. I guess you could say that I sort of stamped a quintessential Shania mark on it.

BEST FIT: Right. And I don't think country radio had really heard anything like it before. It created quite a stir.

I wanted “Any Man of Mine” to be the first single from The Woman in Me, because to me that was really coming in, kicking the door down and saying, ‘This is a new sound for the genre,’ and I was excited about it.

But on my radio visits, when I would go in person, people’s responses to the song were quite interesting. They were taken aback by it. They didn’t really know what to think of it. Even if they were tapping their foot to it, the lyrics made them anxious about playing it.

That’s why we ended up going with “Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under” as the first single, because it’s a more typically country song. We wanted to sort of ease people in to “Any Man of Mine”.

But, you know, it was inevitably going to be heard, and I think “Any Man of Mine” made country radio listeners excited. They were excited about hearing something fresh, something driving and confident.

You'd had a disappointing experience with your first, self-titled record, which you had little creative control over. When this song blew up, it must have felt like some kind of justification for all your hard work and your sacrifices. Do you remember any particular moment when it felt like your time had finally come?

Well, I probably spent more time worrying about whether it would be accepted at all. Even though I felt like I’d found my writing groove once I got into the studio with Mutt, because he was so appreciative of what I was doing, there was a lot of uncertainty whether it would be accepted or whether I would just be closed down right off the bat.

Mutt was very pumped about the way I wrote, about my thinking and my phrasing, so as co-writers we were really thriving. He was putting in this rock edge to my country songs, and I was confident that going in this direction was really where I belonged. But it was difficult. There was a lot of insecurity that went with it too.

Even playing the songs to my label head was hard. I didn’t know what he was going to think because it was so very, very different. It was a unique stance that was nowhere in country at that moment. I thought maybe I might even get dropped from the label. I mean, what if they didn’t know what to do with these songs, or where they might fit?

So I was very lucky to have the label that I did, and we were at least able to get it to radio meekly. Very meekly. Because it was a struggle, I’m telling you! Those faces I got when I was visiting those radio stations! It was tough.

I mean, some of them were very polite. They would say, ‘Wow, it really sounds great but we could never play it. There’s no way our fans are gonna want to listen to this.’ Then a little bit later they’d say, ‘Okay, we’ll play it one time and if we get callbacks we’ll go from there, otherwise you’re on your own.’

Thankfully, the fans did call back. They loved the song, and it was almost like it became this instant success once that little trickle of airplay began.

It was an ugly time in the ‘90s. Whenever there was a successful woman, there was always a cabal of people, mostly men, trying to shut her down. You were accused of being manufactured, and there was some ridiculous controversy about you showing your stomach in your videos. How did you deal with those swipes at you?

It's so true. It was nonstop, definitely. To some people in the industry, I was manufactured for sure. And I think it was only recently, after the documentary, that a lot of people actually realised that wasn’t true and that the record was way overdue to be set straight.

At the time, while all that was happening, I didn’t waste my time to try and change people’s minds. It just felt like a waste of energy and effort. I wanted to be focused on the music. I had so much work to do. I didn’t want to spend my interview time defending myself. I wanted to talk about the music, about creativity, and about what was next.

I tried to just avoid those questions and move on from them, to be honest. To just let them roll of my back. It felt like it would bog me down otherwise, because it was pretty relentless. I’m not really sure why I didn’t take it personally. I guess just because I knew it wasn’t the truth.

SHANIA TWAIN: This one came out of me writing songs in my living room, just sitting around doing my typical kind of folky singer/songwriter stuff.

We were actually working on a different album at the time, but Mutt was always interested in hearing what I was doing while writing. I was just singing the song around and around and then he pitched in with the pre-vocal part. And it was written in a very short period of time. I think I probably finished it that same day.

I think the biggest value of “You’re Still the One” is that it’s become the people’s song. Because it no longer applies to Mutt and I. With songwriting, I think a lot of the time you have to sort of let your original meanings go, because the meaning of a song can evolve so much once it’s out there. Once you give it to the public, they make it their own. They have their own reasons for loving it.

BEST FIT: In your memoir, I remember you talked a bit about the song in relation to your mother and your stepfather and their relationship. So even for you yourself, it’s been reframed in a different way.

Absolutely. It’s just about everlasting love, isn’t it? It doesn’t even really matter what the relationship is. It's actually a very simple song, but it's turned out to be a very powerful one.

It’s lore that this song could have been #1 in the US but was held back because there were not enough copies of the single pressed in time. Is that true? What are your memories of chasing that success?

I do actually believe that happened. The charts can be a little deceiving because it's happened to quite a few of my songs, in fact. There was a lot of confusion at the time because it was a fairly new thing, for a country artist especially, to be releasing across multiple genres and multiple continents.

I did feel that a lot of the time we were chasing the success of the album, and we had to try and keep up with that. It was quite exciting, but I think it's true that we did have a hard time. It was not something that the label was probably expecting would happen so quickly.

SHANIA TWAIN: This is just the type of song that I could write every day of my life. It belongs in the same category as “Forever and For Always” and “You're Still the One” ­– it's just one of those folky ballads that I love to write all day long.

I just love the way the words came out. It's a very sweet story, very reflective of my own feelings of that ironic and desperate moment at the end of summer when you're just falling in love with someone and then all of a sudden everybody has to go because summer's over.

BEST FIT: Is it based on a real experience of yours?

I mean, I've had that feeling so many times. Even with friendships. Like, you meet someone and you think they’re the most wonderful person, your new best friend, and then suddenly you may never see each other again.

It’s also about that feeling of looking back and thinking about people you’ve known in the past and wondering where they went and what they did with their life. It gave me a very easy, peaceful feeling to write this song. Listening back to it, I think the recording did it a lot of justice. [Producer] Mark Ralph did a fabulous job with it.

I love the deeper tone and richness you have to your voice in this song, and on Queen of Me in general. I know you've had a lot of struggles with your voice over the years, but listening back to the record now how are you feeling about it?

Well, I'm still discovering it every day right now. And I'm really loving it. When I listen back to the album, I'm hearing things that I really want to explore more in my voice. You know, the operation I had was not that long ago, so I'm still adjusting to this voice. In the studio and on stage.

I do use my voice differently now. That's a key thing to say. I guess it’s like when you have any physical setback. Like if you injure your finger and you have to play the piano differently. The anatomy is impaired.

The fabulous news, the best news, is that it’s my laryngeal anatomy that’s impaired and not the vocal cords. But the bad news is that the structures that I have now in my larynx may not last forever. So I’m taking advantage of it and enjoying it while I have it. So this tour is going to be especially celebratory.

And I hear you already have another three albums worth of songs ready to dive into when the tour is over. So maybe it won’t be another 6 years before the next record.

Yes, exactly! I have to get to those albums. I’m quite anxious about it!