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Shania Twain: ‘Writing a novel is easier than writing a three-minute story that’s profound’

The country-pop star on selling tens of millions of records, surviving illness and making a return to the spotlight

By Lucinda Smyth | Financial Times - UK | September 8, 2023

“I want to make sure I get this right for you,” says Shania Twain. I’ve just asked her for some music recommendations, and she’s spent the last few minutes looking through her phone. Eventually she lands on three picks: R&B country artist Breland, who is supporting her on her upcoming UK tour, American rock band Greta Van Fleet and a wild card, Dan McCafferty, lead singer of Nazareth — “the greatest rocker who ever lived”.

It makes sense that Twain has an eclectic taste in music. One of the best-selling female artists of all time — often hailed as the “queen of crossover” — her own music is both ubiquitous and hard to categorise. Her first two albums were country (a self-titled debut and The Woman in Me). Her 1997 album Come on Over, which featured “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!”, “That Don’t Impress Me Much” and “You’re Still the One” — was rock-inflected country-pop, produced by her former husband, Robert “Mutt” Lange, who had worked with AC/DC and Def Leppard. Her 2023 album, Queen of Me, has a synthy, high-production sound, leaning firmly towards pure pop.

I’m speaking to Twain, 58, at an extremely busy time for her. Having returned to the spotlight in 2014 after a near 10-year hiatus, the singer is now at “the top of the mountain”, in her words, of the second stage of her career. A Netflix documentary, Not Just a Girl, was released last year and she is about to embark on the UK leg of her Queen of Me tour. A few days before we speak, she has released an extended edition of Come on Over for its 25th anniversary. “At the time when Come on Over was [first] released, I wasn’t stopping for a second to enjoy what was happening,” Twain says. “It’s only now that I’m going, ‘Wow.’ I have the time to reflect and enjoy how monumental that was in my life and career.”

That sense of enjoyment is hard-earned. If Twain is known for her feel-good anthems, she has also endured turbulent hardship. She grew up in poverty in the mining town of Timmins, Ontario, singing in bars from the age of eight. At 22, after her parents died in a car crash, she supported her siblings by singing in hotels. In the 1990s, she moved to Nashville, signed a record deal and produced four albums in less than 10 years, three of which went diamond (selling more than 10mn copies). But then, at the peak of her fame in 2003, she contracted Lyme disease. It severely affected the nerves in her vocal cords and led to her retreating from the spotlight for almost a decade. “It’s very ironic that my voice would be affected by Lyme’s disease,” she says. “It’s primarily something that goes to other parts of your body.”

There was a 2020 Covid hospitalisation too. It was a horrifying time, but one that produced musical inspiration: “Before I know I’m going to recover, I start writing all the things that air can give us.” This impulse turned into the song “Inhale/Exhale AIR” on Queen of Me. Today Twain views her music as a positive release and, in conversation, embodies its straight-talking cheerfulness. I say it must feel good to be back. She sings: “Aaabsolutely.”

Come on Over, Twain’s third album, has sold more than 40mn copies worldwide and is still the eighth best-selling album in history. For many who grew up in the 1990s, the songs epitomise the sound of that era: power-ballad vocals, twangy guitar flourishes, sassy put-downs — so what, do you think you’re Elvis or something? (Not to mention the accompanying video aesthetics: leopard print, coiffed bangs, men’s shirt, short skirt.) But 25 years on, the album also sounds uncannily contemporary. Twain thinks that the direct, honest style of her writing is the reason for the songs’ staying power: “Record-making is about my truth — I wouldn’t be able to get up on stage if it wasn’t authentic. So maybe it’s because I’m speaking so frankly about what I really think.”

At the time of its release, Come on Over was interpreted as a backlash against the narrow gender conventions of 1990s country music: Twain’s sexy, humorous persona didn’t fit the mould of chaste femininity. But she says a transgressive message was unintentional. “When ‘Man! I Feel Like a Woman!’ came out of my mouth, [Lange] just thought it was awesome, that it was super clever . . . It never offended the people it was meant to inspire, and that’s the beauty of it.”

Given she has been writing songs for more than four decades, it’s unsurprising that Twain takes her craft seriously. Her answers are peppered with metaphors: the process is a “crossword” or a “lyrical puzzle”, which involves “twisting the language and cadence without losing the message”. “Writing a novel is easier than writing a three-minute, 22-second story that actually says something profound,” she says. “You really do have to say a lot in a short space of time, and it’s gotta be poignant.”

We’re almost out of time, so I ask Twain to name her three favourite songs to perform live. “I mean, ‘Man! I Feel Like a Woman!’ I will never get tired of because the enthusiasm is so extraordinary, and the meaning of the song has evolved so much over the course of its life.” Then there’s “Pretty Liar” from Queen of Me. And finally, “You’re Still the One”, because “there’s no wrong way to do the song. I could play it on a banjo and it would still be itself.”

As for how she feels about touring again: “It’s going to be very emotional for me, because my time on stage now is more valuable than ever. I’ve never been so liberated as a singer and a songwriter. I’ve never felt more respected by the industry, by the audience. So I’m just taking it all in . . . It’s a win. The only challenge is making sure I enjoy it.”

Shania Twain will perform at the O2, London, on September 16 and 17. ‘Come on Over: The Diamond Edition’ is available now.

The FT Weekend podcast episode with Shania Twain is released on September 15. Listen at ft.com/ftweekendpodcast or by searching ‘FT Weekend’ wherever you get your podcasts.

https://www.ft.com/content/bad80059-b76c-4c36-aaab-a14a288883ce