Shania Twain opens up about her life before fame, her huge LGBTQ+ audience and Little Miss Twainhis most autobiographical album to date.
Shania Twain goes back in time. On his new album, Little Miss Twainthe 60-year-old singer-songwriter links superstar Shania to the girl who covered Marty Robbins and Freddy Fender in the motel bars of her native Canada.
But Shania Twain, who opened Harry Styles’ twelve concerts at Wembley Stadium in London this summer, is not doing it alone. Little Miss Twain welcomes Tanya Tucker, The War and Treaty, Ronnie Wood and even Josh Homme. It was producer Zach Dawes who presented Twain with the idea of inviting the leader of Queens of the Stone Age on “Faded Blue Jeans”. “He said to me, ‘Josh is a fan. I really hear it on this track with you » »Twain remembers. “I said, ‘Are you crazy?’ I would love to. » I’m a rocker, you know? A rocker from the late 1980s.”
Little Miss Twain is an autobiographical album, rooted in your formative years in Timmins, Ontario. What was your life like there?
Your parents died in a car accident when you were 22. How much does this experience inform the album?
I moved to Toronto right after my first little Canadian tour, I was 20 years old. All my friends were in college or university, and I was playing bars in Toronto, which was already huge compared to Timmins.
But then my parents died, and I had to put my career on hold. All of (my siblings) were living with me at the time, and a record deal probably wasn’t going to happen, at least not until the kids finished high school. I didn’t really think about where I was going anymore. I thought about the day by day.
You have a very large queer audience. How have you seen this part of your fanbase evolve?
I believe that if you believe in something, especially when you write songs, it comes through in the writing and it resonates. People know I’m inclusive. They know it through my songs. I don’t even need to say it. I didn’t write a song like “Any Man of Mine,” for example, to send a message. I was just talking about myself. I always say: be original, and if being open-minded isn’t in your nature, don’t pretend. Don’t be something you’re not.
Shania Twain, Harry Styles, Ella Langley and the legacy of Come On Over
Ella Langley is experiencing a moment that is reminiscent of yours in the 1990s. Do you recognize yourself in her success?
I see her as an authentic songwriter. It has an original sound. That’s already a plus, right? You can hear the difference right away, and she doesn’t seem to apologize for anything. It commands respect. I feel it in her, in her aura, her character, her way of carrying a song. I believe what she says.
You opened Harry Styles’ twelve concerts at Wembley this summer. How did you meet?
We met at a backstage event, we talked, exchanged numbers, and he said to me: “It’s my mother’s birthday soon, would you mind calling her to wish her?” » One thing led to another and he invited me to Coachella. That’s when we really found each other, as two artists who had already bonded as individuals.
With “Man!” I Feel Like a Woman! “, you have achieved something remarkable: recording a song about female emancipation that men have no trouble singing. How did you do it?
“Man!” I Feel Like a Woman! “, it’s an expression, so everyone can use it. No one owns this exclamation. It’s a punctuated statement, followed by something very singable.
Yes, it was empowering for women, and that’s how I felt when I wrote it. But it went well beyond that. It’s a celebration. I wrote it from the heart. I wasn’t trying to trick people, I didn’t have an agenda. It was just, “I’m really blossoming, I’m finally enjoying my curves.” “I grew up flattening my chest so nothing moved when I walked, and when I played soccer it was bralettes and baggy pants, sportswear. And then I said to myself: “Wow, that’s all over!” I blossom late, I have to take advantage of these curves. » I really started to embrace it when I started shooting music videos. That’s when I realized, “I have so much catching up to do — and, like the song says, I feel like a woman, so I’m going to make the most of it.” »
Next year will mark 30 years of Come On Over. Are you still amazed at how this album reshaped country music?
It still surprises me that it’s considered an album that reshaped country, because the country I grew up with had distanced me from the reality of what Nashville expected. It was like I was living in a time warp; I wrote and made this album thinking that it remained within the framework of “Take This Job and Shove It”, records by Linda Ronstadt or Fleetwood Mac. Basically, I didn’t remodel anything at all. I revived something that already existed, simply in a contemporary way.
