Shania Twain: ‘Queen Of Me’, Hospitalization & Harry Styles | Apple Music

and I think everyone's settled so once I say this word there's no going back yeah icon I've never started a conversation like that before but I feel it's appropriate today so nice to see oh and the music starts is amazing I'm not gonna say it again I said it again but at the end of what was a fascinating conversation and the reason I said it at all is because it's true Shania Twain has lived the most fascinating life of huge highs very challenging lows we find her in the present moment with balance a new album called the queen of me and in the mood to talk so we did on a beautiful day in Los Angeles it's a beautiful day in Los Angeles it's a gorgeous day for Arizona thanks for having me I feel all cozy no thank you for taking the time it's so great that we get a chance to talk about this really great album we've met once before and I wouldn't expect you to remember but I will remind you because it was awesome we were um a Coachella last year and it was I set the scene it was in Harry's backstage area oh yeah and it was probably about 25 30 minutes before he went on it was close enough that I was surprised people were still there and he was there I was like well this guy is a cool customer if he's still hanging out socializing this close to showtime and you and I got into it quite deep we were talking about our families raising kids the whole thing and you were super casual you were in like just a track suit or you I mean I didn't even know you were performing at that night and I would never have guessed because you were so chill and so charming and funny and I went out to the crowd and then an hour later he came out looking incredible and just shut that down boy Schneider you clean up well well it was just such a contrast and it was it was an amazing moment as well um meeting you for the first time like that and what struck me with the reason I brought that up is what struck me is just how grounded and and appreciative of the moment that night you seemed and the first thing you said when your wife today was it's it's a beautiful day and It just strikes me from listening to this album and and meeting you a couple of times now that that is really where the work has led you to this place of appreciation is that a fair place to start appreciation and celebrating that um there's just that there's so many things to celebrate I feel I'm just I'm probably appreciating and celebrating and enjoying not just life but also my success more than I ever did when it was really you know exploding because being it being a Trailblazer and being successful I've always thought it gets championed and put on this this stage of like wow gratitude you must feel for that I think it must be lonely sometimes when you're experiencing that level of success and the idea of a Trailblazer is by its very nature a lonely experience lonely is a very good word it is very lonely just being a workaholic is lonely yeah especially when you're a creative person or you're the center of the focus of these performances anyone you're on tour for example for me anyway it takes a lot of discipline and requires you know sleep eat travel routine perform yeah I'm very strict with my diet I'm it's just I'm I'm really just um living in a bubble of you know whatever it takes for to put on a good show yeah and that that does just get very lonely month after month um exactly because people want to celebrate with you all the time and what gets you to that place where people are attracted to you on that scale is is the focus on the work is the focus on the craft well the only place to celebrate when you are as you're building accolades and and you know every little success that you're experiencing there's no time in the in in those moments in those very intense uh building career building um years that you have time to celebrate anything there's no so you're celebrating on stage yeah so your your moment to celebrate is with the fans which is quite ironic yeah um yeah and yeah you want to take it to Celebration right it's I get to like you know get out there and have some fun and express and and watch the crowds growing and watch the crowds enthusiasm and that is where I celebrate vicariously with other people it's so so funny and when you look back on that time 95 to 20034 near decade does it feel like another life does it feel like a a different experience is it harder to connected not really I mean you know I'm on stage doing the songs regularly I stay connected to the songwriter in me the songs all stay very current with me in my songwriting Minds I'm always reflecting on moments of coming up with an idea or you know understanding I'm also always looking at you know where that song could have gone production wise they don't drive you crazy though wouldn't it I mean it's there no I kind of have fun with it I do because I look at I mean look at Eric Clapton's Layla that's always a really great example he he recorded that song in a very different like stylistically very different yeah and the song itself and the songwriting itself was done in one moment but then he reinvented it you know with his uh Arrangement and and production so the song is never oh you know the record is never over that's kind of how I feel the song is the song is encapsulated in a moment once you've recorded it for the first time you know that's the end of the song but I always see the possibilities um and enjoy that I just think the songs are uh there's always room for evolution your relationship with your songs is now a shared one because you share them with us and we share them back to you and there's this beautiful wonderful chemistry that exists now with those songs they belong to everybody yeah what do they mean to you as they age like when you think back to a song like you're still the one or um you know any in particular the bigger songs that I think resonate on an emotional level how do you feel about those songs as as they move through life I've watched the music really become a part of the fans lives and how they have taken ownership of the music the songs the they've created they've the songs mean something different to them than it than they did or do to me and that's changed what they mean to me now because now it's almost like the meaning of those songs is more what it has become to everybody else because the reason why I wrote a lot of the songs don't exist in my you know daily you know the way I think in a current you know just day to day place in my mind so in that sense the songs are in the past for me you let them go I let them go but the fans lived them now yeah um and new fans young fans are are so they kind of give the songs a rebirth and a new meaning for me which is so wonderful to watch so the songs never get old do you ever listen to them that's a question do you ever listen to them I do I do listen to the music um from the early years can you appreciate it and listen to it and enjoy it I can I I like to listen to a lot of the music that um like jealous is one of my favorite songs that I've ever written um and recorded forever and for always is another one there's just songs that um I would just sit around I just like to sit around and sing them I love that you know because it's it's not commonly known that a lot of artists when you finish the process it's challenging I think having asked this question a few times for artists to sit down and appreciate the music the way we can and I've always felt that's quite a sad part of the trade you know you get to experience the process which is the ultimate High we get the result which isn't close but for you to not be able to enjoy it the way we do I always felt a little was a bit of a Bittersweet acknowledgment and so I love the fact that you can because I would imagine you make it surely you want to be able to appreciate it I really can because not everything not every song there's just certain songs that never get it's like I just if someone else had recorded them and and that's part of it too I guess maybe I'm listening to them more as a songwriter yes as the songwriter yes and appreciating the way it was put together and I could imagine a lot of my songs recorded by other artists never never recorded by me and I could and I can see them having this different life um I can imagine it so it's probably more that you live in your imagination quite a lot I feel yes a lot yeah this is my um my self-medication is my Med is my imagination what an amazing statement it's a super immediate thing I'm very good at it now I've gotten so good at switching on my imagination and escaping um whenever I feel like it I do that too and and I I've done a lot of work and spoken to to a couple of people throughout my life to figure out why I go there sometimes it's actually not great sometimes I go there too long or sometimes it's bad and um like that is in what like you take you spiral into a rabbit hole well you know somewhere dark when you mention a word like imagination we imagine we immediately imagine this Willy Wonka tight roller dial type environment where it's all wonderful and this everything's made of chocolate and I can eat this hat but actually your imagination has the ability to be able to to to create all kinds of unspoken hypothetical scenarios not of all not all of which if your OCD can be it can be challenging you know I think everyone knows that I traced that back to a place it was escapism for me I think I was trying to avoid some some pretty heavy yeah I didn't really want to acknowledge or didn't have the tools to acknowledge and so thankfully imagination provided me a pathway and I guess in many respects that's why I'm here is it the same for you is that is that imagination even though you can harness it in a positive way now do you recognize that it was probably a place of Escape very much escapism I enjoy I it's two-part I indulge in my creative space and time that's my my me time um so part of it is just really Indulgence I love it I love putting songs together and taking them back apart again and that's why I can listen to older music because I'm when I'm listening to it I'm taking it apart and imagining what it might be like if this person was singing it or if it had been more of a jazz song or more of a rock song or because the songs really never finished in that sense so I indulge in that I love to create I love to all pull the song apart I mean a ridiculous amount of times but the other side of this is the escapism where uh you know just sort of mind over matter if you're if I wanted to simplify it simple Mind Over Matter coping skill um I get it take myself to a different place and imagine that even though I'm stuck in maybe it might be an environment maybe it might be a a mood I will literally lift myself out of it um by escaping into this into songwriting it's fascinating because in doing so you inspire so many others who maybe don't even we don't even have that ability and you know even right down to the way that you dress your music you know queen of me perfect outfit for these songs and that's the thing that really strikes me Shania is that what a life what a life you've lived and continue to live you know it is the the absolute Tech spot up down up and down roller coaster of a life well lived and yet you still come back and through your art you promote the sense of Relentless stubborn optimism of like we're gonna pull through I am a a Seeker for stability I'm not sure I'll ever really truly find that which is I guess part of my motivation to get back up and keep searching for that for stability in every way that's interesting do you think if you found it you'd still try and find a way to search for it because it's fuel for you do you think I just don't think I'll ever find it and that might be just because I'm you know I don't know I mean I might just be that person that will never restlessness oh my God I'm one of them I'm entirely Restless I'm uh I am you know a lot of people consider me tireless but I think it's just no I exhaust myself but I'm just I can't yeah you know and this is why the meditative creative space and my imagination takes me to this you know reflective Zone I can chill out in my you know with my guitar you know and and just self-medicate get high on Accord progression you know it sounds kind of nerdy but it's no it's music so imagine and it's Dawns on me now that's why you you choose Workaholics Mark Ralph is a workaholic yeah you know Jake Gosling yeah these people are as obsessive in their own way as you are it's obsessive it is obsessive for sure I would say that that is true and probably because once you're on it it's a tunnel vision yeah and I can sit there with the same three notes it fits if it really resonates with me and I've just come across this this uh Melody that is is um moving me I'll do the same I'll just repeat that for an hour um like almost like a a mantra because it's so good it's so satisfying how do you work how do you how do you walk away how do you most people who I've spoken to in the Arts who process this way yeah are still making that music it's hard to stop it becomes this thing where the process is the ultimate purpose and and someone said to me once was really interesting I'll call Chris I'm a guy called Fred again a brilliant producer and artist it's me you learn nothing unless you let it go so how do you get to a place where you can let the music go you can let it go if you love being there so much because there's there's always like this is where I start to get excited because there's always so many more to come it's like I'm never gonna ever stop finding those so it's like you know you land for a second you land it's like oh okay yeah and now you I'm right off to the next I'm right off to the next idea I'm right off to many ideas and and the ones I end up developing are the ones that resonate the most the ones I want to repeat and repeat repeat and repeat and repeat um and and then till I get to a point where I land and then I'm off again you know when I've heard in how Excel for the first time when you get to the chorus even though Shana I think there's probably a pretty good argument that a lot of what you sing and say in your songs is borderline of chorus but this one has a real thing what you gonna do with that air I mean on paper that's powerful but the way you say it is so friendly and casual and it's like you're talking to someone over there it's like what you're gonna do with that air it's just exactly it's so good yeah is that one of those moments when you're like a nailed that you must know you know what the concept came before the the song came and the concept was inspired um by the fact that I learned through covid and I'm mathematic anyway and then I had a really bad um about with covet and it was very threatening and when I got through that I thought woof you know we take error for granted so much um we take a lot of things for granted you know things that are just there but air I had never stopped to actually realize that of course you know outside of pollution and the fact that we um yeah when we damage the air we focus on it but otherwise the thing that is absolutely essential to our survival is the thing we give the least credit to the actual literal ability to inhale and exhale that's why that's one of the many reasons why covid-19 and anything of that nature that it takes out attacks our respiratory system is so tragic because what they're truly watching and then there are other situations that we know about where we've watched the air being taken from people that's right that is um it you know it doesn't get as final as that and it's very rapid um so I was so grateful oh boy in this in writing this whole album I was really in a place of gratitude yeah you know and that is so hopefully that comes out in the music not for the most part I mean I'd say pretty lie has got some thing in the tank oh yeah yeah yeah you know I say brand news got some Sting in the tail exactly well that's like the spunk yeah the spunk the spunk definitely came out um you're Canadian right yeah I'm a New Zealander right we can swear around each other right exactly there's a couple of there's a little bit of you juice in those songs totally I know but it's so satisfying and everyone that's heard the song I always thought well let's see how I don't know how people are going to react to this but it's the conversational how whether we would you say it conversationally you know what you're gonna do with that yeah what are you gonna do with it how are you gonna spend it you're such a liar you're such a liar such a liar yeah I've said that many times a while you're such a liar yeah but yeah so I do like to be conversational um in my songwriting and but yeah what you gonna do with that air this came about um so I had just um gotten out of the hospital went right in the studio can I ask what was what was it something serious were you yes I had to be airvacked um by a special team that because nobody else would fly me to the hospital because I you know because you can't just pick up a coveted patient and fly them to a hospital so they wouldn't give me a bed of course naturally until I could confirm that I could get this air vac to bring me there um so it was a terrible terrible bout that you had it was a very bad yeah I had covered pneumonia and every day my lungs were filling up with inflammation every day within 12 days I was I was pretty much dying thankfully I had plasma therapy and it worked on the fourth day the plasma therapy um I had I had no I had zero zero zero zero point one antibodies I had no antibodies I wasn't fighting it um so my antibodies were not building up and my lungs were getting more and more full of inflammation so I mean you know that was just you know I was just waiting for the plasma therapy to hopefully kick in it doesn't kick in for everyone that's the sad thing were you present during that time yes so there must have been the most Vivid and complex array of thoughts and emotions going through it didn't run away with me I think it was more the the staff around me were really really good they didn't tell me how many more days of plasma therapy that I could not respond to before I was now then you know on a respirator when you're on my way out yeah um I was halfway in to where what would have been considered my maximum treatment they didn't say that which was great you know of course it was better to be ignorant about them so okay one day at a time yeah um so when I got out of there I saw this um a minister it was just a quick little blob of of him he was an older man and he was just you know it's like can you feel that that's air it's breathing in Breathe It Out inhale exhale without that can't live and he says What You Gonna Do With It what you gonna do with that error I'm thinking yeah exactly I'm gonna I that is so exactly true so I I wrote a song about all the things that you can do with air that we take for granted all the things that you can celebrate like blowing bubbles and dancing on shoes and dancing on throwing your hands up in the air and it's like all the things that we just don't you know sailing and where do you think that comes from it's air we need air for all of these this is what makes this is what makes you you though as an artist you take something it is traumatic right severely traumatic for anybody to go through and yes you were one of the very fortunate ones to come through the other side and still be here today yeah but you took that experience and you wrote a song that is like that floats like what you gonna do with that yeah that's it you're gonna do with that yeah get up on the chair You Can Dance just put your hands you can do whatever you know this experience yeah and you give it to you give it to us as a reason to celebrate yes and you've been doing it over and over again like because you celebrate when you get through something difficult you know um I do anyway and i s I share it in the music you know that's how I um that's where I put my inspiration into music you know that's where that's my outlet for inspiration so what was music to you in the years that we didn't get a Shania Twain album that you were experiencing a different life yeah very positive things from what I can tell raising a child it doesn't get better than that I know it's a parent as you know we talked about it it's the best that's right it's the best and I know I think and and yeah that's another sign but absolutely yes we did talk about it and I'd love to talk about that later but to get to that you know it wasn't it wasn't all that people do walk away from the Arts and decide to raise families all the time that's a conscious decision but it wasn't the only reason there was also other things going on that you had to deal with and so without putting you through all of that again because you documented that so thoughtfully in your documentary which you should watch what I didn't get from you in that documentary was what we was music to you you're a writer to me first and foremost you're a songwriter take nothing away from your ability as a performer or your charisma or star power or your success you write words and put them into songs at the highest Mastery level were you still doing that were you still applying yourself even though we weren't getting music I was doing it um in fact you've just um inspired me now I'm going to go back to that period and listen to those writing tapes I was so trapped in this dysfunctional voice that I mean thankfully I was able to indulge in my parenting experience and I really did and in a way that was a blessing because I wasn't distracted I was just mum and like loving every minute you're off the wheel it was so fabulous yeah um but the loss of my voice oh my God this was like it was like losing it was like a death it was like something that I really believed I would never get back again that that was it and I had to face it and I spent those years coming to terms with it that I would never sing with any satisfaction it was acceptance yes I had to because I just couldn't there was no Solutions I dug as far as I I could dig and there were no no answers so I I did learn how to get sounds out like I would speak up here all the time and so I remember making fun of me and saying he didn't realize what it was going through I didn't even know myself what was happening to my voice but um he said why are you always talking up here like that your whole thing selling me up here and I said it's the only way that I can get get like continual sound out what it really is crazy to me is that there's a moment when everything's fine yeah then there's a moment when it's not and then there's a moment when you know why and when it's not and when you know why how long was that seven years seven years that you're sitting there going I was on tour I was making records and I sounded like this and now I don't know why I can't yeah that is crazy it was so scary but I I mean after someone after like three years I'm like okay you know I've been to every specialist that you could imagine that should know yeah um or that should have been able to get to the bottom of it they just couldn't so in the end I ended up going to a um surgeon yeah specializing make a long story short specializing in head neck throats um surgery for cancer yeah which those surgeries are normally caused by injury like either a cancer of you know the laryngeal area or the tongue or the mouth anywhere in the head Zone um obviously I'm related to singing and then or an accident boxers it happens to boxers happens in car accidents and so on and what happens the reason why he thought of the vocal cords is because not not the vocal cords sorry he was looking at my vocal cord sorry I'm on the perfectly intact there's nothing wrong with the vocal cords yeah you must be thinking it's psychosomatic have I psyched myself oh everyone taught told me that was that yeah and then and so he said well what I do is normally I mean the sad risk of doing surgeries for cancers or or injuries in this zone is that that very um operation or the injury itself or the impact will damage one of those nerves or both yeah to the vocal cord so you're rolling the dice they're not singers yeah um they're just people that often walk out of these surgeries with that damage yeah I was going in to repair that damage that had been caused by Lyme's disease yeah so it was a neurological thing nerves were damaged they were both damaged um they both have slight atrophy one one is ten percent one's 20 so 30 altogether the nerves have this atrophy and so they don't have um symmetrical closure which is forget it you cannot get you cannot sing with any you know or speak with any consistency okay so great now we know what the problem is what to do what to do about it well they said well the same surgery that like these other surgeries or or injuries that can cause this damage there's also one that can repair the not repair the damage but can compensate for the uh the Symmetry the lack of symmetry so now I have two Gore-Tex crutches in my larynx it's an open throat surgery it's not on the vocal cords they don't touch the cords and they just put these braces in there and they position them you have to sing while they're doing it I know I never want to have to do it again it's on some James Cameron 1980s this is like open up the patient seeing while we repair the vocal cord this is like telling you it is a mind f like because I mean he was so calm this surgeon goes you know you'll have to be um conscious for the during the year what did you sing do you remember what you're saying did you sing one of your songs I don't even remember I think I sang like ABC's and you know like you could have done better than that you're literally one of the only people probably I'll ever meet who was singing while you had surgery on your throat like so they have to watch your chords yeah as you phonate to see what where they're weak that's great and then they put the crutches in there to compensate until your cords are uh aligned closing yeah um you know symmetrically wow so you're singing you're speaking you know hit a high note hit a low note and then they close you up and you're you know in agony for a few weeks and you can't speak and in that moment when you test it out I'm telling you that was emotional Euphoria I'm like oh my God I have a resonance that I haven't had in years you sound so good on this record and I can hear it is it cool if I tell you that like in like I could never do I couldn't do that yeah yeah there's a couple of Prince type ad-libs on this I think there's one in Queen of me where you're just like oh I'm enjoyed my voice my new voice oh my God there's so many things I couldn't do for something there's also a depth yeah I got more depth out of it and the mature and the maturity in a growl and it's like and you use it like in um waking up dreaming there's a moment when you go in on a note and it's like oh you've died really deeper on that I let it go like so if it rasps out I just stay with it um there are certain notes that I have a very hard time getting them without that rasp but the rest doesn't hurt me so I'm like it's just part of my new voice some of the lyrics on this album wow but I've got to pay respects to this to this moment on the last thing I remember is the first time we're together yeah and then you flip it and then you do the one about the first kiss from my life it's all first and last and last and first and the whole turnaround thing this beautiful Barnyard dance you're having with this memory is out of control I mean thank you I just got to ask you about that that song because it's like so great it's just one of these songs that I sat around it's just like a real singer-songwriter song you know kind of folky the folky the kind of it's sort of like a you're still the one Vibe you know it's got this 80s almost now the feel of it has this I mean it's called last day of summer right yeah that's very reflective it almost feels like a it could be a sort of it could be you and someone else it's got that 80s sort of bouncing but it's it's me reflecting on that bummer feeling that oh just as you're hitting up enough courage to ahead it to to like get into this romance The Summer's over yeah it's like one kiss that's all I got and now the Summer's over and we we gotta go you know but you want to make that night last as long as you possibly can so you're there until the sun comes up and and Life Starts rolling again and then it's like okay I guess it's time to go and um and then you reflect on that through the years I think we all have done that you always wonder where that um that ironic moment in your life ended up but now again but now wondering sort of how much of that is drawn from imagination and how much of that you subscribe to in your life in terms of your because you've had a like we all have have love is not simple it's not a straight line yeah you know I've been married 23 years I'm very very lucky but I've had my heart you're gonna say I've been married 23 times I don't know why I I jumped ahead of you there in my thinking sorry about that okay 23 three years breath oh that's awesome you know what though it's not compared to 23 times so you just took this amazing achievement that my wife and I have gotten and you just ruined it because it's like 23 times way way better I mean I've been married 23 times that's much better story oh yeah that would be let me tell you tonight my 17th wife was a fantastic human but I just I knew straight away it was only going to last five minutes oh my God but I just sort of Wonder like how much does it help you writing about these things better understand something that has You Know You're Not Unusual in that regard yeah but it's Unique to you and it it's it was obviously very tough to go through your divorce and so is it is it helpful for you to write songs like that to put love on a pedestal again writing is such there really is a self-help immediate medicine in the sense that if I want to be I want to change my mood of the spirit that I'm in music can do it like instantly instant change of spirit and and perspective um but at the same time I'm always pulling from my own real emotions and experiences and sometimes they are Melancholy a lot of times whatever they are they are what they are right um so I kind of pulled myself through these emotions when I'm writing a song even if the song ends up being like a really happy song I'll always go through these other real true literal moments as I'm writing a song um of myself so yes there's a lot of me in that song um bringing myself back to school and falling in love or wanting to fall in love or just on the edge and then you know you don't really you're just getting up the courage somebody your mother starts calling out for you or something like that so it's I remember those moments so well even in the answer the detail is so palatable like it's so funny how you go through these and I can see the Deep I'm just going to say this like when I when I had the pleasure of talking with Barbra Streisand she's very similar I feel to you in the way that it's all in the detail it's all the magic is in how much can I really what's the stroke behind the stroke right I'm a very descriptive writer um I'm but I'm a very conversational writer and I and I I like to make things relatable for people I can really get stuck um and I love it I indulge in this like I'm telling you this is my chocolate I'm not a big chocolate but my chocolate is like playing with words and saying things that might be nonsensical to anyone else but to me they make an entire sense because they're they're completely explaining what I wanna what I'm feeling yeah okay but because I got to come out saying it that's where it doesn't always make sense so that's what's behind my my every song that I that I record but the next layer is then making it so that other people can understand it and yeah that now that's a different that's a skill the first part's not a skill the first part is just spewing and almost a courage almost yeah yeah a willingness anything and it's it's it's there's no inhibition there it's so free it's very I can say whatever I want to say but you take risks when you do that everybody you've collaborated with for the most part there's been some exceptions maybe early on and but I think about the managers you've worked with John Landau you know Scott you know your current manager a q Prime people who focus on multiple genres but but you know you were Shania the queen of country and then you know the people you decide to work with again Mike Ralph Clean Bandit years and years Jay Gosling it people like that mutt def lepid AC DC it's like you strive for these places that are out that are not I scare people around me sometimes I know it's that's what happens basically but I have to be very I have to be really sure of myself and I have to have conviction yeah and then I then I gotta put people around me at ease since you've just got to trust me I I need to just this is what I really need to do um this is what feels right for me I can't you know I've got to do what feels right and makes them more it makes everybody else's job more difficult because then they got to work out how to you know I'm sure I'm sure a lot of times it's not easy I love that scene in the documentary where you finally admit that you're working with Matt Lang yeah see that Ryan I was like whoa and you're like is that Goodwill is that bad whoa I mean it was inspired looking back on it now it makes total sense given the ambition that you had which was to take your ability and your confidence and your own skill and put it into an environment where someone's gonna push it sonically ambitiously right push your writing push push push but it was always you and I feel like that relationship was so well documented because both of you are the best at what you do mutt and you are the best at what you do and you make great music out of it you've got a beautiful child out of it and then the personal relationship ends spectacularly badly the child is beautiful the music continues Here Comes now yeah you don't need my point proven so my question is has it ever crossed your mind now that you have this wonderful life now marriage a child music songs where do you ever have the inkling to work with him again just purely from a creative point of view I would love to um I'd love to make another album with him or just a song um I don't think he would I think he would shy away from not shy away from it I just don't think he'd be interested why is that do you think I don't know I just think he he's turned that page um very definitively I just don't think he wants to um I think it just wants the past to be you know behind him which is fair enough and you know um so yeah I don't think that will ever happen I mean I would uh but I do think about it all often you know I think it would be great and then you know my son makes music so I'm you know um do you make music with your son I don't make music with him because he's he's just so focused on his own thing um and so he doesn't include me so much he loves it when I listen to what he's doing um but I'm not really um I know my place really there you don't even want to say to him help me out with this song or well well I'll tell you what I did do um he wrote this thing a few years ago and you know he plays me what he what he does in writes and everything like that and I really love a lot of the things that he does but this particular thing I said you know do you mind just sending me the stems to that and and for me to just play around with it yeah yeah no he was cool he's like yeah yeah sure and uh and pulls out the song I worked on it during covid um and I had to write a bridge but I refuse to change the melody because I thought it was so not me it was so not the way I would phrase something and the melody was so not where I would go naturally and tell me you finished it I did but this is what I thought was good I said I'm going to take myself out of myself a little bit I'm gonna follow his phrasing and Melody yeah to spec when was the last time you did that Eva never never I've never done that he's your first ever top-line writer exactly that's epic now Top Line writer and I never thought of it that way but I did sing it to him like I did a demo of it yeah um like a rough vocal form to hear it and it goes I don't know Mom you got it you gotta State you got to do it exactly like you gotta time it like that yeah and the melody normal it's gonna be like that it's meant I said yeah but it sounds so like Juvenile and it goes yeah but that's the idea it's supposed to be it's supposed to sound nursery rhymes it's on purpose I'm like okay and I really forced myself to do it and it turned out so well um it's really a um a lot of people's pick it's really fun it's very dance will we ever hear it it's on the album whoa It's on the album yeah it's called number one I knew it was gonna be number one I literally was about to say that I'm so mad I didn't get a hit of that that would have been such a win you would literally be like ah I mean it was an all right entity but he really knows how to pick my songs I mean seriously I can't so that's one of those moments I'm so mad people say that stuff all the time I knew it was number one because when you said it has to be like this and it has to be Nursery rhyming and when I heard that song I was like Shania is really playing by the rules on this song in terms of like the way you're delivering it like it's like you're my number one you're my number it's like it would not be where I would go naturally I crushed that so that was it's Asia wasn't it Asia yeah did a great job on that I gave him no publishing though obviously I mean he owes you so much money for like you know education food board I don't know but listen it's the first like Twain Lang song in a very long time now that is even better than he's a Top Line writer I told him I said listen let's just do a whole twang project you know what did what did I mean must have had a lovely moment with that though knowing that yes wow and you know I didn't let Asia hear that until it was finished I didn't tell him it was on the record till it was all done that's a great lesson though especially if he doesn't want to be an artist and wants to ultimately put some form of influence in the hands of other people which is what writing and producing is yeah you can never count your chickens no because I'm the artist yeah it's your choice and he was he really he said oh he was really happy with it he had a few comments about some of the vocal other vocal bits that I'd put in there that I removed but I said listen well you didn't produce it you know you're it's the it's the you know you wrote and arranged it but Mark Ralph produced it and this is how we saw it and I'm the artist so this is but I I stuck to his so it was real awesome so it wasn't like an in-room collaboration um but I didn't tell him it was on the album how did he react when he told him was he happy he stoked he must have been really happy I mean it's kind of a cool cucumber I know he doesn't jump up and down the next time and he's sort of like oh wow that's cool man great next sort of I mean he appreciated it he's gonna be just fine I mean if he's already at a point where he's just like I'm on a Shania Twain now he's my mom whatever I'm on the next thing whatever he's gonna be just fine well he's not passive about it but he's um you know pleasantly surprised his own man and his identity is forming and formed and you can you can I mean it's a job well done you can put yourself on the back and but it's tough letting them go yeah and um what got you through that because I can imagine for someone like you and I'm sorry if this oversteps the mark but you lost your parents had a really formative time in your life you have like many many people lost great love and it's a loss the idea of Abandonment which is related to being a child but obviously rejection as a grown-up is tough and so then you lose the even if it's a beautiful loss someone like that you know goes on and lives their life I mean what I'm asking you to do is help me get prepared for it basically you know what I think it depends on the child yeah so Asia um has such an independent nature I'll tell you the way he prepared me was when he was 14 months old and I decided that he didn't want to be nursed anymore you know it's like and you're like but I'm this is my job I'm like yeah but you're hungry I know you're hungry and and no no no no no no no yeah I'm thinking oh okay well I better hurry up and make something for him to eat because like he wants to eat so um but that was the first time I realized wow kids really this at least this kid he knows like he's done with that now and so I really felt that ping then and so when it came around now at you know 18 he left end of 17. uh I I it didn't surprise me I could see his nature already being so independent he's very very focused incredibly obsessive about what he does has to be excellent to add it and I get it I understand you know I I I've always been the same way so um and it sounds the same way so I think the trick to it is now making a point of being part of their life as they grow and as they develop their own life now it's our job to make ourselves available because now they're getting busier all the time they're getting you know they're they're they're rightfully preoccupied they're they're focused and if I show up and go out of my way and make that effort he really appreciates it you know you know this album is a it starts it's giddy Up's a bit of a a bit of a trick it's a bit of a trick move you know because it's like here we go it's like self taught us an eye a little bit I'm coming out we're getting back on the horse here we're doing this thing and then it becomes this really interesting modern sort of Pop experience with you know still your you know the essence of great country writing great storytelling great great word play was that deliberate did you know the idea of a Giddy Up sort of kicking things off and like I like how playful you are with country music you always have been it's like you recognize the importance of it but you know that it's not sacred enough that it can't be changed or played with oh absolutely first of all creativity is not sacred that's like open no way that's like you know um but you must be you must be the rain has to be imagine is it wrong for me to acknowledge that a natural in particular there is a certain sacred feeling toward the craft of country music and that's why change has been hard to come by there or slower than most I think it's more of a cultural thing um I don't think there's anything you can't say in country uh I feel like more it's the sound it's a Sonic thing so um if you take a song like like for example when I was a kid I grew up to a song you know there was a song Johnny Paycheck Take This Job and Shove It yeah that's pretty in your face um now but I think if a woman would have done that or even if a woman did that now and then and then the production was more pop country I'm not sure it would be played so it's the context that they're very precious about that's why what you did was so important when you broke out of that and went to pop radio and to rock Arena shows because what you said I would be careful here because I like Nashville but I don't mind saying it is you said to the to people who make those decisions that keep it within a Sonic and let's be really clear a gender-based control environment right you said that's okay I'm not relying on that entirely anymore these people want these songs I'll go here and I'll go here I I live here just fine yeah first of all I write music for myself that's my Indulgence that's what I love to do if I can never sing anymore at some point or I can't perform I'm gonna write music I'm gonna write write I'm gonna write anything so that's forever um as for the sake of making records if I record a song that I've written now I've already formatted it you know of course now you're you're taking a song that could be anything in the world you wanted it to be you could take I will always love you Dolly Parton um or she could have written it never recorded it yeah and then the only one we would know was Whitney Houston yeah and so you know the world that any song could live in is endless infinite so once you decide um along with your producer and as an artist where that song's going to live sonically uh now you're making a decision about genre and this is where somebody in the industry has to decide whether it qualifies or not and so you don't want to make it so obvious or or you don't want to feel so Shackled that you have that you have to get the description first yeah but that's the way forward that's the way it was designed and it took people like you and Prince and they're a great artists who were like no I I understand you want me here and here and here but I do all of it I I said this to someone the other day I really feel like I'm amazed there wasn't a prince Shania Twain era because he was so attracted to artists with strong incredible writers strong visual aesthetic controlled their dynamic and charismatic yeah I missed out on that because um Prince called me when I got divorced and he said um we're on the phone and he said Shania why don't you come to Paisley Park I want to make the next rumors album with you and that was the weirdest thing he could have ever have said because mutts his standard of what he thought where I could live as a standard was that album rumors album and he said that that to me and so when Prince said that to me I'm like oh man I'm I'm not even divorced yet I'm just like you know I've been dumped but I'm not obviously divorcing I'm like I this is way too ironic what you're saying right so I know him like such a major Prince fan and then on top of it I hadn't found my voice yet I was still working on it I was so far from finding it still I was writing but I was too insecure to go and and and and get with Prince in the studio I was too insecure in every way plus I'm on the phone with them and I'm swearing like I always do I mean because I'm just at home and it's yeah yeah you know yeah he said to me well if you you know if you do decide to come to Paisley Park there's no swearing allowed here so that was like another strike I'm like oh no I love you so much but I don't think I could get through writing and recording it now without swearing somewhere along the way what are you gonna do to me if I swear I'm gonna have to stand in the corner or something I wasn't sure about that I don't think I was ready for what all that was going to mean for me yeah and so I just sort of I didn't give up on it or anything but then he died yeah well I'm glad that that moment happened even if we didn't get music from it because it just once again proves that that point that everybody's known for the longest time which is Shania people like Prince and yourself and there's there's a few artists on the planet that will leave a legacy that goes beyond the music you know it influences in so many different ways and I know that's hard for you to probably get your head around and it's probably not for you to even try but as you continue to move through your life and make more music and and live this with this renewed spirit I hope you recognize that and I hope that the young artists that appreciate and respect you and and offer you these um this feedback I hope it resonates you know I hope that going on stage with Harry Styles makes sense to you now because it made sense to everybody else I was so relaxed about it I I know you're in your sweatpants backstage talking to me 20 minutes I can literally vouch for this right I wasn't hiding I wasn't masking it no I was really really I was more nervous than you were I don't understand what's going on I wasn't even doing anything well I just thought you know first of all we have a casual back and forth anyway yeah it's good at that it's great I mean it's just such a good dude yeah so listen to music uh he has sent me music he's great at sending songs yes I was out of the country for that first weekend and I said well I'm not going to be there but I'll come on the second weekend and he said okay and then he then he comes back to me and says I really want you to do the first video and like is there anyone I'm like ah you know and but I didn't realize the significance of that moment I knew I mean not not because I I just I saw it as a you know um I don't know I just saw it as a moment to get together with Harry but I didn't see it as such a landmark moment but it wasn't until it was done we knew we knew it was going to be if it all went to plan anyone who's a fan of him knew this was a major moment for all of us and mainly obviously for her but for all of us as fans but it was that you can't know it's a landmark moment if it's the first land if it's a landmark moment yeah right I'm not sure everyone you're always going to be a second behind it especially if you take part in it which you did I mean it was such a wonderful surprise um everyone's reaction and it now makes sense to me now um because that the reaction was what it was because it's the Harry's and his age group and even younger yeah that their moms had my music on yeah and they're in the backseat and they know by the time you know at some point they know Every Word by heart um because after him then there was the up generation and those kids I mean uh uh these are the kids these these guys are at my concerts now I'm you know they're they're there with their mom or their grandmother or they're just there with a bunch of girls because they were you know in little kids together growing up together listening to this stuff so now it does absolutely make sense or the police it's beautiful please hold it and uh I said I wasn't going to say the word once I don't know why I sit there with myself it's ridiculous and then we're going to try to buy the music so I'm going to end the way we started by saying thank you icon for your time and thank you for the music and thank you for everything that you've given us thus far and I'm so pleased that we're having this conversation this morning to come thank you [Music]

Channel: Apple Music

Views: 169,239

Keywords: apple, music, apple music, apple music youtube, youtube apple music, apple music 1, shania twain, shania twain interview, shania, twain, queen of me, zane lowe, zane, lowe, zane lowe interview, zane lowe shania twain, shania twain zane lowe, man! i feel like a woman!, you're the one, canada, queen of me shania twain, shania twain queen of me, harry styles, harry, styles, shania twain harry styles, coachella harry styles, prince, come on over, country music, the woman in me, giddy up

Id: GeMBCi4dN04

Length: 57min 26sec (3446 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 01 2023