May 20, 2025 • 36 mins
How many Shanias do you know of? Is there such a thing as another Shania? Because when you say the name Shania, there really is just the one.
Shania Twain is without a doubt the greatest Canadian country singer of all time and arguably the person responsible for helping country music cross over into the mainstream - but her journey was not an easy one - and... her name wasn't always even Shania!
This is the story of Shania Twain's 'Man I Feel Like A Woman' with newly unearthed audio from Shania herself.
Written by Cam Lindsay for iHeartRadio Canada
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Some songs from the first notes make you feel like
you could kick a door down, and this is one
of those songs. Let's go girls. You know the songs
just making people feel something. It's been a pleasure to
work on this song with her, but do you know
the history to struggle making any kind of record. I
don't always have the direction or concept. This is Encore,
(00:20):
an in-depth look at the stories behind the music. Here's
IR Radio's Ruby Carr.
I'm Ruby Carr and this is the story of Shania
Twain's Man I Feel Like a Woman.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
People
have to get used to the fact that country isn't just.
Cows and, and hay and farm and stuff like that.
It's not just that. Country music is just a way
of life. It's just a uh a type of music
that we can live our, our day to day lives by.
I think that's why so many people are relating to it.
I mean,
I, I think it's easy to, to, to drive your
(00:55):
kid to daycare and listen to country music, but it
doesn't mean that it has to be about a bar
fight or about.
You know, I don't know, tears in the bottom of
your glass or it doesn't have to be about that.
And I think people are just getting used to that,
used to the fact that it can be just about
anything
really.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Those are the immortal words of the one and only
Shania Twain. Shania Twain is without a doubt the greatest
Canadian country singer of all time and arguably the person
responsible for
country music cross over into the mainstream. Personally, I think
if she did decide to sing about cows and hay,
it would still be a hit. Shania was born Eileen
(01:35):
Regina Edwards in Windsor, Ontario on August 28th, 1965 to
parents Sharon and Clarence Edwards. I was gonna call her
Eileen from now on, but it just makes me think
of the song and it's too confusing. So let's go
with Shania.
At a very young age, Shanna's mom moved her and
her two sisters, Jill and Carrie Anne to Timmons, Ontario
following a divorce from her dad. Two years later, her
(01:57):
mom would marry a man named Jerry Twain and give
birth to their son Mark. Yes, they named him Mark Twain.
The couple would also adopt Jerry's infant nephew Darryl when
his mother died.
But the Twain family chose to simulate the Brady Bunch
and reject the notion of stepparents and siblings. They were
simply one big family. Jerry Twain was a full-blooded Ojibwe
(02:20):
from the Mattagami First Nation. Upon adopting Shannaa and her siblings,
they were legally given Indian status and recognized as members
of the Temagami First Nation.
would tell her children that they had native blood in
her biological father's family. However, that was not true. That
side of the family came from French and Irish descent,
but both Jerry and Sharon identified their family as indigenous peoples.
(02:44):
Years later, after she had become a star, Shania would
be confronted about her birth father and questioned about her status.
In a statement, she explained that she only knew one father, saying,
My father, Jerry Twain went out of his way to
raise three daughters that weren't even his. For me to
acknowledge another man as my father, a man who was
never there for me as a father, who wasn't the
(03:05):
one who struggled every day to put food on our table,
would have hurt him terribly. We were a family, stepfathers, stepbrothers.
We never use that vocabulary in our home.
To have referred to him as my stepfather would have
been the worst slap across the face to him. Shania
discovered a love for music at a very young age.
She started singing when she was 3, and at the
age of 8, after the family relocated to Sudbury, she
(03:28):
would sing in the school choir at community centers and
senior citizens' homes. But the real opportunity is came performing
late at night in local bars. She would tell
The big issue from the age of 8, I would
go singing folk and country songs at clubs on the weekend,
sometimes even after midnight till 2 or 3 in the
morning on a school night. I didn't enjoy being in
(03:49):
those places at all. I developed a lot of stage fright.
Sometimes there were strippers going on before me, and by
the time I went on, everyone in there was quite drunk.
It wasn't an environment for a child, I'd say so.
I didn't want to perform in public, but my mother
was trying to help me get exposure so that I
could eventually become a professional singer. Growing up in Timmons
(04:09):
wasn't easy for Shania and her family. They lived in
poverty and were forced to make do with little, like
wearing rubber boots throughout the winter and often going to
school without lunch. The family meals would consist of goulash
and what they called a poor man.
Sandwich bread with only mayonnaise or mustard, but there was
also abuse in the Twain home. In her 2011 memoir
(04:30):
from this moment on, she would detail the emotional and
physical abuse she and her mother suffered at the hands
of her father, Jerry. So trigger warning here. On one occasion,
he plunged her mom's head into the toilet, leaving her
unconscious and Shania thinking that she was dead.
She also wrote about how he sexually molested her when
she was a teenager. Eventually she would convince her mom
(04:52):
to leave her father, and the family ran away to Toronto,
where they would stay in a battered women's shelter for
a year, but Sharon did return to her husband in Timmons.
In an interview with ABC's Nightline, Shania would say her
dad could be two different people. It was the Jekyll
and Hyde in him that was the greatest torture. I
loved him and I.
I respected him so much for what he did for us.
(05:13):
Being the hard worker, he set a great example, so
I'm still left confused. I'm baffled by all of that.
I really am. Shania was insecure around other kids her age.
She was too embarrassed to bring any friends home where
they could see how her family lived, but she would
find solace in her music, and it was definitely taking
her places. Her mom would book her on any type
of show she could find, and then at the age
(05:35):
of 14,
She made a memorable appearance on CBC's The Tommy Hunter Show,
where she would be introduced as Ellie Twain. Around this time,
her family moved back to Timmons to start a reforestation
company where she would spend her summers over the next
few years working. Here she is telling Much Music's Bill
Wolichka about her time planting trees.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
It
was a tough job, that's for sure. It's a lot
of college students and university students do during the summer.
But we did it every year for 5 months a
year and not only did we
That I do it for such a long period of time,
but when we go out to plant, we don't come
into town every day. A lot of, a lot of
people that plant, they plan for the ministry and they
(06:16):
go out on the bus in the morning. They plant
for the day and then they come back into town
at night, but we never did that. We've camped out
because we were all in these very remote areas, miles
from any town.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
When she was at Timmons High and Vocational school, she
began singing for a local band called Long Shot, covering
songs by Journey, Arrio Speedwagon, and Brian Adams, who we'll
hear from later.
She learned how to balance performing with the band at
night and writing songs with her schoolwork, but as soon
as she finished high school, Shania got the hell out
of Dodge. Instead of attending her prom, she gave her
(06:47):
dress to a friend and headed out on tour to
play covers with a band called Flirt from Sudbury. After
a tour of Ontario, she would end up in Toronto,
where she was ready to begin a new chapter in
her life.
In order to survive in the big city, Shania was
forced to take on odd jobs during the day, like
working the drive-through at McDonald's. At night she would play
any gig she could find. After receiving an invitation from
(07:10):
vocal teacher Ian Garrett, who taught at the Royal Conservatory
of Music, Shania began taking lessons to learn how to
sing properly and in return cleaned his house to pay
for the lessons.
A Toronto DJ named Stan Campbell soon discovered the 19
year old singer and wrote about what he witnessed in
the country music news. She would have been Eileen at
the time, so he wrote, Eileen possesses a powerful voice
(07:33):
with an impressive range. She has the necessary drive, ambition,
and positive attitude to achieve her goals. Campbell would bring
Shania into the studio to record backing vocals for a
song he was producing by a radio host and soft
rocker Tim Dennis. The song is called Heavy on the Sunshine.
And honestly, you should check it out. Some major yacht
rock vibes on that one. Around the same time, an
(07:54):
established country singer-songwriter by the name of Mary Bailey discovered
Shannaya singing some Willie Nelson and Hank Williams songs in Sudbury.
The two had actually first met when Shaniaa opened for
Bailey when she was only 11, but this time she
saw a confident woman on stage and was impressed by
the songs she sang of her own. Bailey would put
her own music career on hold to become Shania's new manager.
(08:18):
When she was 22, Shania started attending school for computer
programming in what she considered a backup plan if music
didn't work out for her. Smart. Her life would change
drastically though on November 1, 1987 when her parents, Sharon
and Jerry were killed in a car accident near Wawa, Ontario.
Immediately the responsibility for raising her younger siblings was left
(08:40):
up to Shania. Her older sister Jill already.
She had a family of her own, so Shanna had
to move back home to look after Carrie Anne, Mark
and Darryl. Here she is on the Today Show with
Hoda Copy.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
My younger
sister was still living at home and my two younger
brothers were still, you know, 13 and 14 years old and, um,
I didn't, you know, we all agree that they shouldn't
be separated, but it was, you know, no other, no
relatives were able to take both of them in.
So the only way to keep them together was for
(09:13):
us
to stay together.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Shania had already taken on the role of a parental
figure with her younger siblings, but now she had to
be a full-time mom and take on all of the
responsibilities of keeping the household functioning. Thankfully, her manager told
her about a gig working as an entertainer at the
Deerhurst resort, so she moved the.
Family to nearby Huntsville and began singing in a musical
(09:35):
production called Viva Las Vegas. It was here where she
would learn how to perform on stage as part of
a big show. In her 2022 Netflix documentary Not Just
a Girl, Shania would look back at her time working
at Dear Hears saying, it was pretty scary. I didn't
really know what I was doing at all. I had
no idea how to sing and where.
high heel shoes, for example, at the same time. I
(09:56):
had to learn fast because this was now my new job.
I was busy rehearsing, running the kids back and forth
before and after the show, I would go home and write.
There was no other way to get ahead except working
my ass off, really. That was it. There was no
other way. All I could do was keep working, keep demoing,
keep writing, and hoping I would get a break.
(10:16):
Despite her busy schedule, Shanna didn't give up her dream
of becoming a recording artist. In her first interview with
Much Music, she would tell Bill Wolika,
Speaker 2 (10:25):
it came the point to the point where I really thought, OK,
I've done enough performing.
As an artist without any products, I wanted to have
a product to promote the next time I got on stage,
I thought, you know, when I get up on that stage,
I want to be singing my own stuff and I
want to be singing things that people know that are mine,
(10:45):
you know, Shania Twain, this is Shania Twain, this is
her single and whatever it would be at the time,
of course I didn't know, but.
I thought, you know what, it's just something, it's time
for change, and I called up my manager at that time.
She wasn't my manager yet. She was just a lady
that I'd known for many years in the music industry,
and I said, I really feel it's time that I
start recording. I need to get out. I want to
(11:06):
get out to more people, and the only way to
do that is get on the radio and you don't
get on the radio unless you got a record and.
So she said, Well, let me see what I can do,
and country music was where I felt the most comfortable,
so I didn't even question where I wanted to go
as far as a recording artist. That was where I
wanted
to go.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
After a few years at Deerhurst, her youngest siblings were
now old enough to leave home. It was time for
her to take a chance and pursue her dream.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
A
lot of people ask me, you know, why, why did
I pick country music? Because a lot of people know
that I've done all kinds of music and
It's one of those things where I've gone full circle
and country was my roots, and I sang country for
so many years as a child, um, that I and
I did the natural thing as a teenager, branching off
(11:53):
and experimenting with all kinds of, you know, all kinds
of music, rock and R&B and, and there was country
and there was a lot of Christian music and everything.
And then when I decided to record, I ended up going,
you know, to become a recording artist. I went full
circle back to the country and that's my circle
story.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Shania decided to focus on country music as a singer
and a songwriter, so her manager Mary began passing on
her demo to music industry folks in Nashville. An entertainment
lawyer named Richard Frank was interested and came to see
her showcase at Deerhurst. Impressed by her performance, he went
back to
Nashville and connected her with some producers named Nora Wilson
(12:31):
and Harold Shed who had worked with Billy Ray Cyrus.
Soon she signed a contract with PolyGram Records, which would
eventually change its name to Mercury Nashville for its country artists.
But there was one thing she had to do before anything.
The label wasn't big on the name Eileen Twain, which
would have been her name at the time, so she
needed a new name. Appearing on Apple Music's.
(12:53):
Home now Radio, she explained just how Eileen became Shania,
saying a lot of celebrities are born with a different
name than they end up with as a stage name,
and I'm one of those people. It's actually a long story.
In short, I was born Eileen Regina Edwards, and then
I was adopted and I became Eileen Regina Twain. Then
I became a professional singer and I needed a stage
(13:14):
name that sounded a little less like my grandmother's name
because I'm named after my grandmother.
Both my grandmothers, Eileen and Regina. I think in my
mind I was just not really wanting to be called
my grandmother's name on stage. So I decided to change
it to Shania Twain. I met somebody with the name Shaniaa,
thought it was beautiful, and Shania Twain was born. I
(13:35):
love that. It's a good thing I never had to
change my name. It would have taken me forever to
decide naming my daughter was to this day the hardest
decision I've ever had to make. Uh, hopefully she doesn't
want to change it later.
Uh, anyway, the name Shanaya, by the way, means I'm
on my way in the Ojibwe language, and that was
definitely a good indicator for what was to come for
(13:57):
the 26 year old singer. She moved down to Nashville
to begin working on her debut album.
Shania would describe her experience as feeling like the newbie
in town trying to find her way as an original
artist without being kicked out of town. Almost immediately, Shania
learned that she didn't quite fit in. Her label felt
her songs weren't quite country enough, so they brought in
(14:17):
some external songwriters to help her put together an album.
Released on April 20, 1993, Shania Twain's New Name, self-titled
debut album, would immediately fail to find much of an
audience and only reached number 67 on the US Country
Albums chart. In her Netflix documentary, Shanaya admitted, there's not
really that much of my creative input in the album
(14:39):
at all other than just the way I.
Sang things or the way I phrased things that sort
of thing in the studio even that didn't leave me
any room because they were 3 hour sessions. I had
no room to be creative. I had no room to
experiment and grow into the project. She did, however, find
one way in which she could express herself through her
album cover. Here she is with Bill Wolichka.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
This is where I come from. This was shot in
my hometown.
This was shot in Timmons, Ontario, uh, in a farm
field where I'm from, and that is, I mean, that's really,
that is me. I mean, now.
Not Canada necessarily, um, because I know, you know, even
here we don't get a lot of snow, but where
(15:21):
I'm from we do. I'm I'm from 500 miles north
of here. So we get, we get that snow. It's real.
Mind you, there's been a lot of people in Nashville
that has done the exact opposite of what you're thinking
and said, Now, is that fake snow? Is that wolf superimposed?
Is that real? Yes, that is real. It's all real
and it's where I'm from.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Mercury tried to help raise her profile by signing her
up for a tour across America called Triple Play featuring
two other new artists on the label, Toby Keith and
John Brannon. But considering there weren't too many female country
artists from Canada that had made it in Nashville till
that point, and by not many I mean zero, it
didn't do much to help. In fact, the only real
(16:03):
publicity Shania struck up with her first album was when
the video for her first What Made You Say That was.
And by CMT for being too suggestive. This was all
because Shaniaa decided to channel her inner Madonna and Cindy
Crawford by flashing some midriff, flirting with a shirtless guy
and embracing her sensual side. Gasp all things that just
(16:26):
didn't happen with women in country music at the time.
Here is Shania talking to much music about what made
you say that, bringing something new to the genre. Well,
Speaker 2 (16:34):
I think
that for country music, it's different, um.
I think it's kind of refreshing because it's different and
videos and country um are are fairly new really um.
It's really taking off now and it's becoming a really
great tool, and I think it's necessary. I think that
(16:55):
the people need, especially in country music, they want to
know the person that's singing that music. I think the
whole look of it was just different. It was it
was original and different, and I think that was refreshing
to people.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
While the music video was banned for a while in
the US, it actually received a lot of airplay on
CMT Europe, where it caught the eye of Robert Mutlan,
one of rock music's preeminent producers for bands like AC
DC and Def Leppard. Based in
At the time, Mutt was looking to break into producing
country music, and he was struck by Shania's beauty and
(17:26):
her ability to sing differently from other country artists. He
immediately knew that he had to work with her, so
he got in touch. The two began to talk on
the phone and became fast friends, bonding over his love
of country and her love of rock music. They would
first meet at the CMA Music Festival in June 1993
and quickly began collaborating on music together. While traveling throughout Europe,
(17:49):
they began.
A whirlwind romance that culminated in a wedding on December 28, 1993,
just six months after first meeting. The private ceremony took
place at Shania's old workplace, Deerhurst Resort. Apparently the champagne
was non-alcoholic and Lang dedicated everything I do, I do
it for you, his 1991 smash hit collaboration with Bryan
(18:11):
Adams to his new bride, which would be very sweet,
but you know the rest of that story, or do you?
I'm gonna get to that later.
Despite her debut album flopping, Once the honeymoon was over,
Shaniaa was ready to begin working on new music. She
was nearly dropped by Mercury Nashville, and her label was
hesitant to let her work with Mutt due to his
(18:31):
well-known history of rock and her sound already straying far
enough from country. But after hearing some of their demos,
they could feel the chemistry between the two and agreed
to let Mut sign on as the next album's producer.
A lot of the songs Shania had already written beforehand
in her remote cabin just outside.
Timmons expecting to use them for her debut album, but
(18:52):
the label wouldn't allow it. This time would be different though,
working with Mutt, who had co-written mega hits for Michael Bolton, Hart,
and Bryan Adams. The two would bounce ideas off each
other and finish songs together, which gave Shania this whole
other level of confidence in her songwriting. Here she is
telling Much Music's Kim Clark Champness about how Mut Lang
(19:12):
changed songwriting for
her.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Mutt brought in an element that was fresh.
And new for country music, but was very sensitive to
the sound of country music because he's such a big
fan of country. And at the same time, I was
always such a huge fan of, you know, rock and
pop and basically anything other than country. I mean, because
(19:34):
I had grown up singing country music, it was almost like, um,
I would listen to other styles of music for inspiration
to write country songs if that makes any sense. You
kind of have to get out of yourself every once
in a while to get inspiration.
And he does the opposite, so we would both tap
into each other's styles of music for inspiration. So we
really compliment each other that way, and that's why you're
hearing the balance is very unique.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Released on February 7, 1995, Shania Twain's second album, The
Woman in Me came across like a breath of fresh
air for country music. First single Whose Bed Have Your
Boots Been Under? An absolute bop. A fusion of pop
and honky tonk. It felt like Shania.
Real introduction, reaching number 31 on the Billboard Hot 100,
(20:18):
number 11 on the US country chart, and number 1
on the Canadian country chart, and the hits just kept coming.
Her next single, Any Man of Mine, topped the country
charts in both Canada and the US. The same happened
with If You're not in it for Love, I'm out
of here. You win my love, and no one needs
to Know. All of a sudden, this radio-friendly pop sound,
(20:39):
Shania and Mutt had
Brought to country music was setting a whole new standard
for the genre, and the press was taking note. Here's
what Entertainment Weekly wrote just months after the release of
The Woman and Me. Shania Twain may know how to
write a hit single, but she sure doesn't know how
to be a country star. She's from Canada, for one thing,
and doesn't live anywhere near Nashville. Not once in a
(21:01):
5 hour interview does she thank God for her success.
She doesn't even eat meat, for goodness' sake. Granted, the
29 year old singer's hair is on the big side,
but what country music star of the moment is mostly
about is breaking stereotypes. I can't tell whether that was
meant to be complimentary or not. I think it was.
The Woman in Me would become the biggest selling country
(21:22):
record of 1995 and eventually sell more than 20 million
copies worldwide. Up until that point, it would also be
the best selling female country album of all time. Shania
also won her first.
Grammy for Best Country Album and 5 Canadian Country Music
Association awards. But once again, Shania sparked some controversy, not
(21:43):
over a racy video, but in choosing not to tour
in support of her album. There was plenty of criticism
and speculation that she was a manufactured product and couldn't
actually perform live. Years later, she would explain the decision
to Billboard, saying, I didn't tour off the woman in me,
and that was part
Because I really felt I needed more powerful music under
(22:03):
my belt to get out and do a really powerful
show and one where I wasn't doing any covers. I'd
spent my whole career up until then doing covers to
make a living. It was important to me to focus
a lot on the songwriting and not to be touring
at the same time. My mindset was, right now I'm
a songwriter, I'm not a performer. I've got to put
my performance side on hold and focus on being the
(22:25):
best songwriter that I can be.
Now 30 years old, Shania may have been a new
kid on the block in country music, but with experience
and maturity, she was already a veteran of the music industry,
and she had more to prove. She was becoming a
household name in country music and ready to take the
next step, so she hired a new manager named John Landau,
(22:46):
who had been pivotal in the career of Bruce Springsteen
as his co-producer and manager.
Yes, Shania was now sharing a manager with the boss.
In the Netflix documentary. Landau would admit she wanted to
cross over to pop. She wanted to be an international superstar,
and she wanted to be an absolutely top touring artist.
Those three goals clear as a bell, first time I
(23:08):
talked to her. Oh, I love her.
Shania and Mutt got to work on a new album.
They would write everywhere together, whether it was when they
were bored at home, on the way to the grocery store, or,
you know, just chilling at Michael Bolton's house in New Jersey.
That's where I do my best writing too. She was
feeling some pressure over following up a record as big
(23:29):
as the woman in me, but Mutt kept her grounded
and gave her confidence. They used that confidence to make
this album.
More diverse by leaning deeper into their rock and pop sides.
They intended to only write songs that had the potential
to be singles and ended up with 16 in total,
coming in at over an hour's worth of music. While
not all 16 would be issued as singles, a whopping
(23:52):
12 of them were. That has to be some kind
of record, right? Naturally, half of those songs would go
on to become huge hits for Shania.
Including some ballads which her label discouraged her from writing,
but there was one song out of the bunch that
really stood out, and it came from a desire to
keep things lively. Basically, Shania was writing it to make
(24:13):
sure she didn't get bored during her concerts. Here she
is talking to Music Plus in 1997. Actually,
Speaker 2 (24:19):
a
lot of this album was written with a tour in
mind because I wanted to have an energy to say
things and
And to have a feel with the music that would
translate very well live because I didn't want to get
bored night after night. I wanted to get out there
and give the same energy every night. And so you
have to have a certain type of music to be
able to do that. And I do get bored very quickly,
so I needed something exciting and something exciting to say
(24:41):
with attitude and something with a lot of expression and
something like man, I feel like a woman is the
perfect example of that.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
The genesis of Man I Feel Like a Woman went
all the way back to 1994 while Shania and Mutt
were actually writing The Woman and Me. They were sharing
ideas back and forth when she heard him play this
one riff. Here she is explaining that moment to Vice.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
We're at the breakfast table and he's got this riff
that chug, you know, he's rocking away there on his groove,
and he goes, come on, get into some freezing.
I start singing a melody kind of bluesy down and
down and down down it just felt natural, no lyrics yet,
(25:22):
but Mutt says I want the phrase to end with
a signature hook. He was relentless with the groove and line.
CL I came up with something. He'd play the riff
and then stop and then say, You're on, it's you,
you know, bring the goods. Finally he stops at the
end of the riff and I say, man.
(25:43):
I feel like a woman. That's it. That's it.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
You got it. Shania intended for the expression, man, I
feel like a woman to be a celebration of being
a woman these days and how pretty darn fun it was. Hence,
the first lyric after that iconic guitar riff is Shania announcing,
Let's go girls. This song was meant to be a romp.
I mean, obviously it has two exclamation marks in the title,
(26:06):
but it wasn't written exclusively about women. In fact, the
inspiration behind the words came from her memories.
Performing at Deerhurst and watching the drag queens that performed
at the resort in her 2011 memoir from this moment on,
Shania wrote, Being inexperienced at applying makeup, I marveled at
how artistic and glamorous some of the men were. They
(26:27):
looked so gorgeous with features that had been defined and
exaggerated with blushes, liners, shadows, and accessories. My fascination with
this initial introduction to men transforming themselves into beautiful women
likely sowed the seed of inspiration for a song I
would write years.
Later, man, I feel like a Woman. So yes, it
is about female empowerment, but not just that. This song
(26:49):
was also about inclusion and providing a fun anthem for
anyone and everyone. She would tell the advocate, a lot
of the stuff I do has such a feminine female perspective,
but a powerful one. It's not only girl power, it's
gay power. I think that song really stands for both. Man,
I Feel Like a Woman was a hit from the
(27:09):
moment everyone heard it. I mean, come on, it's irresistible.
The combination of mutt's hooky riff, Shanna's frisky and confident vocals,
and the catchphraseness of the chorus, not a word, but
you know what I mean? All of this made it
an immediate smash hit. Bryan Adams actually recently talked about
his theory behind the opening of the song on his
(27:32):
radio show. Here's what he had to say. Back in
the 90s, I was working with Mutt Lange. We were
writing and producing songs together and it was around that
time that Mutt started working with Shania Twain.
Mutt also really loved ice hockey and so do I
and of course being Canadian, I was super happy that
he was into it as well. Now he used to
go to the games and I can remember how much
(27:54):
he loved all the crazy organ that happened in between songs.
I often think that ice hockey is the reason why
we got da da da da da da. I mean,
it does kind of have organ vibes, doesn't it? Maybe
he's right. Now the only thing stopping the song from
actually becoming a hit was.
Releasing it. Shanna's third album, Come On Over was released
(28:15):
on November 4, 1997, led by the first single, Love
Gets Me Every Time. The album followed in the footsteps
of the Woman in Me and was huge, a massive
country album that was even bigger than its predecessor. And
by that I mean it was a full-on cultural phenomenon,
not just of 1997 and 1998, but the entire decade.
(28:36):
It went straight in at number one on the album
charts in Canada, and number 2 in the US. It's
hard to believe.
In 2025, but Mac's Harlem World sold 3000 copies in
its first week of release. But Man I Feel Like
a Woman wasn't even one of the album's first singles.
It was the 7th official single from Come On Over. Seven.
(28:57):
Can you believe that? Released in March 1999, it came
a full 16 months after the album came out. And
at first it was only for country radio in the US,
but it picked up steam really fast and entered Billboard's
Hot 100 6 weeks later.
followed by the UK and the rest of the world.
And that's the thing. Shania Twain was no longer just
(29:18):
a sensation in North America. She was now a global superstar.
Part of what made the song so iconic from the
get-go was its music video, directed by Paul Boyd, Shania
flipped the script on one of the 80s most memorable
music videos, Robert Palmer's Addicted to Love, which saw him
perform with a band full of female models with pale skin,
(29:39):
heavy makeup, and dark hair, playing.
to his song. For man I feel like a Woman,
designer Mark Bauer wanted to do something unexpected, so he
put Shania in a black suit with a top hat
and a veil, leading a band of beefy male models
in tight chested tops and shiny pants playing along to
her song. The homage to Palmer's video was an obvious
(30:01):
eye wink, but with a heavy message of shouting out
her femininity. And as expected, the music video caused a
major stir in the country music industry. While the video
was
Crossing her over even more into the mainstream pop market,
country music wasn't too happy about it, but I mean,
what else is new? In the Vivo footnotes for the video,
Shania recalled how much flack she received from her peers.
(30:25):
We were taking country music to a place it hadn't
been before, and some people didn't like that. I remember
the art department saying, this is way too sexy. The
women listeners are not going to like this. They're going
to feel threatened. But Shania stuck to her vision and
knew that women would totally get it.
It's hilarious that they thought that we would feel threatened.
I just rewatched the video and all I feel is
(30:47):
the need to find that outfit for myself. And also
I might start wearing a veil, so mysterious.
And wouldn't you know it, Shania was right. Women did
get it, and to this day it remains her most
popular video on YouTube with close to a half billion views,
plus one by me just now. She would even recreate
the video when she performed at the 41st annual Grammy Awards,
(31:09):
but instead of models, she had her band dress up
in costume. Oh, and in case you were wondering, this
time Shania toured and boy, oh boy.
Ever do big business. People were jonesing to see her
live after she chose not to tour her previous album,
and they came out in millions. In fact, more than
2 million tickets were sold for a tour that lasted
(31:30):
18 months over 1998 and 1999. It was the highest
grossing tour by a female country artist at the time
and took home Country tour of the Year in both
1998 and 1999 at the
Pollar concert Industry Awards. It has been nearly 30 years
since Come On Over came out, and its significance in
country music history and music history in general cannot be overstated.
(31:54):
To date, it has sold more than 40 million copies worldwide,
and here are just some of its many notable achievements.
It is the best selling country album, the best selling
album by a Canadian artist, and the world's 8th best
selling album of all time.
Since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales in 1995, it is
the biggest selling album in Canada in the past 30 years.
(32:16):
Of all time, it is only behind Michael Jackson's Thriller.
It's also the 9th best selling album of all time
in the US and the 16th of all time in
the UK, and Guinness World Records officially recognized Come On
Over as the biggest selling studio album by a female
solo artist, period.
Did you get all that? Today Shania Twain is recognized
(32:37):
as one of the biggest artists of all time in
any genre, and she has continued that success even after
Come On Over. In total, she has sold more than
90 million albums in the past 30 years. Think about that.
An artist whose debut album was completely ignored, who essentially
came from nothing, went on to defy the odds and
sell that many records, and in doing so she.
(32:59):
Do so many barriers for both country music and female artists,
opening the door for country pop crossover artists such as
Faith Hill, Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, Kasey Musgraves, and Maren Morris.
Of course, there is more to the story. Shania moved
to Switzerland, had a son with Mutt in 2001 named Asia,
and then divorced Mutt in 2008 after he had an
(33:22):
affair with her best friend.
And then 2 years later, she remarried the ex-husband of
that best friend. I want to see the made for
TV movie about that.
It was kind of a spouse swap, but both couples
are still together, so who knows, maybe it was for
the best. What I do know is that Man I
Feel Like a Woman has never lost its mojo. In
(33:45):
the early 2000s, Chevy used it as an ad for
its Colorado truck, featuring one guy singing along to the
song inside the truck while his bros looked very confused.
It's fine, but the premise is ridiculous because you know
they would all be singing along. Britney Spears sang the
song with her.
Pals in her movie Crossroads, iconic film, and Shania herself
(34:06):
surprised everyone at Coachella in 2022 when she joined headliner
Harry Styles for a performance of Man I Feel Like
a Woman. That was pretty cool. And I'm sure Harry
has done that song a few times at karaoke because
just about everyone has, as Jennifer Hudson revealed when Shania
visited her show. Check this
Speaker 2 (34:24):
out. And man, I feel like a Woman is the
number one karaoke song of all time.
God,
how does that feel? Like
I think that is so cool. So I did, I
would never have imagined that, you know, that I would
ever have, you know, the biggest karaoke song in the world, but, um,
I think it's right, um.
(34:47):
But I, I, I uh I enjoy the compliments and
I can just imagine um.
I mean, every person in the world can sing that
song with an exclamation mark. It's just a statement kind
of feel good song. It is a feel good song
and we all love
that song, right?
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Shan calls man I feel like a Woman a real
pinnacle point in her career, but she also knows that
song doesn't just belong to her, it belongs to everyone.
In an interview with Billboard, she summed it up best
when she said, Man, I feel like a woman never
gets old. The audience entertains me more than I entertain them,
I think, on that song. There's a lot of gay
men out there that just sing that song from the.
(35:29):
Bottom of their heart and they take it on as
an anthem. It's got such a beautiful spirit in that sense.
I just love it. Everybody gets into it in their
own way, and it's got an anthemic quality to it
that's so beyond what I ever could have imagined it
would develop into. For men, for women. For women, it's
their party song. It comes to life every night and
(35:49):
I don't think I'll ever get bored of it.
Me either, Shannaa. Let's go girls. I'm Ruby Carr and
that was Encore and the story behind Shania Twain, man,
I feel like a woman. nah. I'm gonna go kick
a door down, but don't forget we've got new episodes
every Thursday, so don't miss next week. Encore is an
(36:12):
iHeart Radio Canada podcast. Download the free iHeart Radio app
and subscribe. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming.
Some songs from the first notes make you feel like
you could kick a door down, and this is one
of those songs. Let's go girls. You know the songs
just making people feel something. It's been a pleasure to
work on this song with her, but do you know
the history to struggle making any kind of record. I
don't always have the direction or concept. This is Encore,
(00:20):
an in-depth look at the stories behind the music. Here's
IR Radio's Ruby Carr.
I'm Ruby Carr and this is the story of Shania
Twain's Man I Feel Like a Woman.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
People
have to get used to the fact that country isn't just.
Cows and, and hay and farm and stuff like that.
It's not just that. Country music is just a way
of life. It's just a uh a type of music
that we can live our, our day to day lives by.
I think that's why so many people are relating to it.
I mean,
I, I think it's easy to, to, to drive your
(00:55):
kid to daycare and listen to country music, but it
doesn't mean that it has to be about a bar
fight or about.
You know, I don't know, tears in the bottom of
your glass or it doesn't have to be about that.
And I think people are just getting used to that,
used to the fact that it can be just about
anything
really.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Those are the immortal words of the one and only
Shania Twain. Shania Twain is without a doubt the greatest
Canadian country singer of all time and arguably the person
responsible for
country music cross over into the mainstream. Personally, I think
if she did decide to sing about cows and hay,
it would still be a hit. Shania was born Eileen
(01:35):
Regina Edwards in Windsor, Ontario on August 28th, 1965 to
parents Sharon and Clarence Edwards. I was gonna call her
Eileen from now on, but it just makes me think
of the song and it's too confusing. So let's go
with Shania.
At a very young age, Shanna's mom moved her and
her two sisters, Jill and Carrie Anne to Timmons, Ontario
following a divorce from her dad. Two years later, her
(01:57):
mom would marry a man named Jerry Twain and give
birth to their son Mark. Yes, they named him Mark Twain.
The couple would also adopt Jerry's infant nephew Darryl when
his mother died.
But the Twain family chose to simulate the Brady Bunch
and reject the notion of stepparents and siblings. They were
simply one big family. Jerry Twain was a full-blooded Ojibwe
(02:20):
from the Mattagami First Nation. Upon adopting Shannaa and her siblings,
they were legally given Indian status and recognized as members
of the Temagami First Nation.
would tell her children that they had native blood in
her biological father's family. However, that was not true. That
side of the family came from French and Irish descent,
but both Jerry and Sharon identified their family as indigenous peoples.
(02:44):
Years later, after she had become a star, Shania would
be confronted about her birth father and questioned about her status.
In a statement, she explained that she only knew one father, saying,
My father, Jerry Twain went out of his way to
raise three daughters that weren't even his. For me to
acknowledge another man as my father, a man who was
never there for me as a father, who wasn't the
(03:05):
one who struggled every day to put food on our table,
would have hurt him terribly. We were a family, stepfathers, stepbrothers.
We never use that vocabulary in our home.
To have referred to him as my stepfather would have
been the worst slap across the face to him. Shania
discovered a love for music at a very young age.
She started singing when she was 3, and at the
age of 8, after the family relocated to Sudbury, she
(03:28):
would sing in the school choir at community centers and
senior citizens' homes. But the real opportunity is came performing
late at night in local bars. She would tell
The big issue from the age of 8, I would
go singing folk and country songs at clubs on the weekend,
sometimes even after midnight till 2 or 3 in the
morning on a school night. I didn't enjoy being in
(03:49):
those places at all. I developed a lot of stage fright.
Sometimes there were strippers going on before me, and by
the time I went on, everyone in there was quite drunk.
It wasn't an environment for a child, I'd say so.
I didn't want to perform in public, but my mother
was trying to help me get exposure so that I
could eventually become a professional singer. Growing up in Timmons
(04:09):
wasn't easy for Shania and her family. They lived in
poverty and were forced to make do with little, like
wearing rubber boots throughout the winter and often going to
school without lunch. The family meals would consist of goulash
and what they called a poor man.
Sandwich bread with only mayonnaise or mustard, but there was
also abuse in the Twain home. In her 2011 memoir
(04:30):
from this moment on, she would detail the emotional and
physical abuse she and her mother suffered at the hands
of her father, Jerry. So trigger warning here. On one occasion,
he plunged her mom's head into the toilet, leaving her
unconscious and Shania thinking that she was dead.
She also wrote about how he sexually molested her when
she was a teenager. Eventually she would convince her mom
(04:52):
to leave her father, and the family ran away to Toronto,
where they would stay in a battered women's shelter for
a year, but Sharon did return to her husband in Timmons.
In an interview with ABC's Nightline, Shania would say her
dad could be two different people. It was the Jekyll
and Hyde in him that was the greatest torture. I
loved him and I.
I respected him so much for what he did for us.
(05:13):
Being the hard worker, he set a great example, so
I'm still left confused. I'm baffled by all of that.
I really am. Shania was insecure around other kids her age.
She was too embarrassed to bring any friends home where
they could see how her family lived, but she would
find solace in her music, and it was definitely taking
her places. Her mom would book her on any type
of show she could find, and then at the age
(05:35):
of 14,
She made a memorable appearance on CBC's The Tommy Hunter Show,
where she would be introduced as Ellie Twain. Around this time,
her family moved back to Timmons to start a reforestation
company where she would spend her summers over the next
few years working. Here she is telling Much Music's Bill
Wolichka about her time planting trees.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
It
was a tough job, that's for sure. It's a lot
of college students and university students do during the summer.
But we did it every year for 5 months a
year and not only did we
That I do it for such a long period of time,
but when we go out to plant, we don't come
into town every day. A lot of, a lot of
people that plant, they plan for the ministry and they
(06:16):
go out on the bus in the morning. They plant
for the day and then they come back into town
at night, but we never did that. We've camped out
because we were all in these very remote areas, miles
from any town.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
When she was at Timmons High and Vocational school, she
began singing for a local band called Long Shot, covering
songs by Journey, Arrio Speedwagon, and Brian Adams, who we'll
hear from later.
She learned how to balance performing with the band at
night and writing songs with her schoolwork, but as soon
as she finished high school, Shania got the hell out
of Dodge. Instead of attending her prom, she gave her
(06:47):
dress to a friend and headed out on tour to
play covers with a band called Flirt from Sudbury. After
a tour of Ontario, she would end up in Toronto,
where she was ready to begin a new chapter in
her life.
In order to survive in the big city, Shania was
forced to take on odd jobs during the day, like
working the drive-through at McDonald's. At night she would play
any gig she could find. After receiving an invitation from
(07:10):
vocal teacher Ian Garrett, who taught at the Royal Conservatory
of Music, Shania began taking lessons to learn how to
sing properly and in return cleaned his house to pay
for the lessons.
A Toronto DJ named Stan Campbell soon discovered the 19
year old singer and wrote about what he witnessed in
the country music news. She would have been Eileen at
the time, so he wrote, Eileen possesses a powerful voice
(07:33):
with an impressive range. She has the necessary drive, ambition,
and positive attitude to achieve her goals. Campbell would bring
Shania into the studio to record backing vocals for a
song he was producing by a radio host and soft
rocker Tim Dennis. The song is called Heavy on the Sunshine.
And honestly, you should check it out. Some major yacht
rock vibes on that one. Around the same time, an
(07:54):
established country singer-songwriter by the name of Mary Bailey discovered
Shannaya singing some Willie Nelson and Hank Williams songs in Sudbury.
The two had actually first met when Shaniaa opened for
Bailey when she was only 11, but this time she
saw a confident woman on stage and was impressed by
the songs she sang of her own. Bailey would put
her own music career on hold to become Shania's new manager.
(08:18):
When she was 22, Shania started attending school for computer
programming in what she considered a backup plan if music
didn't work out for her. Smart. Her life would change
drastically though on November 1, 1987 when her parents, Sharon
and Jerry were killed in a car accident near Wawa, Ontario.
Immediately the responsibility for raising her younger siblings was left
(08:40):
up to Shania. Her older sister Jill already.
She had a family of her own, so Shanna had
to move back home to look after Carrie Anne, Mark
and Darryl. Here she is on the Today Show with
Hoda Copy.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
My younger
sister was still living at home and my two younger
brothers were still, you know, 13 and 14 years old and, um,
I didn't, you know, we all agree that they shouldn't
be separated, but it was, you know, no other, no
relatives were able to take both of them in.
So the only way to keep them together was for
(09:13):
us
to stay together.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Shania had already taken on the role of a parental
figure with her younger siblings, but now she had to
be a full-time mom and take on all of the
responsibilities of keeping the household functioning. Thankfully, her manager told
her about a gig working as an entertainer at the
Deerhurst resort, so she moved the.
Family to nearby Huntsville and began singing in a musical
(09:35):
production called Viva Las Vegas. It was here where she
would learn how to perform on stage as part of
a big show. In her 2022 Netflix documentary Not Just
a Girl, Shania would look back at her time working
at Dear Hears saying, it was pretty scary. I didn't
really know what I was doing at all. I had
no idea how to sing and where.
high heel shoes, for example, at the same time. I
(09:56):
had to learn fast because this was now my new job.
I was busy rehearsing, running the kids back and forth
before and after the show, I would go home and write.
There was no other way to get ahead except working
my ass off, really. That was it. There was no
other way. All I could do was keep working, keep demoing,
keep writing, and hoping I would get a break.
(10:16):
Despite her busy schedule, Shanna didn't give up her dream
of becoming a recording artist. In her first interview with
Much Music, she would tell Bill Wolika,
Speaker 2 (10:25):
it came the point to the point where I really thought, OK,
I've done enough performing.
As an artist without any products, I wanted to have
a product to promote the next time I got on stage,
I thought, you know, when I get up on that stage,
I want to be singing my own stuff and I
want to be singing things that people know that are mine,
(10:45):
you know, Shania Twain, this is Shania Twain, this is
her single and whatever it would be at the time,
of course I didn't know, but.
I thought, you know what, it's just something, it's time
for change, and I called up my manager at that time.
She wasn't my manager yet. She was just a lady
that I'd known for many years in the music industry,
and I said, I really feel it's time that I
start recording. I need to get out. I want to
(11:06):
get out to more people, and the only way to
do that is get on the radio and you don't
get on the radio unless you got a record and.
So she said, Well, let me see what I can do,
and country music was where I felt the most comfortable,
so I didn't even question where I wanted to go
as far as a recording artist. That was where I
wanted
to go.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
After a few years at Deerhurst, her youngest siblings were
now old enough to leave home. It was time for
her to take a chance and pursue her dream.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
A
lot of people ask me, you know, why, why did
I pick country music? Because a lot of people know
that I've done all kinds of music and
It's one of those things where I've gone full circle
and country was my roots, and I sang country for
so many years as a child, um, that I and
I did the natural thing as a teenager, branching off
(11:53):
and experimenting with all kinds of, you know, all kinds
of music, rock and R&B and, and there was country
and there was a lot of Christian music and everything.
And then when I decided to record, I ended up going,
you know, to become a recording artist. I went full
circle back to the country and that's my circle
story.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Shania decided to focus on country music as a singer
and a songwriter, so her manager Mary began passing on
her demo to music industry folks in Nashville. An entertainment
lawyer named Richard Frank was interested and came to see
her showcase at Deerhurst. Impressed by her performance, he went
back to
Nashville and connected her with some producers named Nora Wilson
(12:31):
and Harold Shed who had worked with Billy Ray Cyrus.
Soon she signed a contract with PolyGram Records, which would
eventually change its name to Mercury Nashville for its country artists.
But there was one thing she had to do before anything.
The label wasn't big on the name Eileen Twain, which
would have been her name at the time, so she
needed a new name. Appearing on Apple Music's.
(12:53):
Home now Radio, she explained just how Eileen became Shania,
saying a lot of celebrities are born with a different
name than they end up with as a stage name,
and I'm one of those people. It's actually a long story.
In short, I was born Eileen Regina Edwards, and then
I was adopted and I became Eileen Regina Twain. Then
I became a professional singer and I needed a stage
(13:14):
name that sounded a little less like my grandmother's name
because I'm named after my grandmother.
Both my grandmothers, Eileen and Regina. I think in my
mind I was just not really wanting to be called
my grandmother's name on stage. So I decided to change
it to Shania Twain. I met somebody with the name Shaniaa,
thought it was beautiful, and Shania Twain was born. I
(13:35):
love that. It's a good thing I never had to
change my name. It would have taken me forever to
decide naming my daughter was to this day the hardest
decision I've ever had to make. Uh, hopefully she doesn't
want to change it later.
Uh, anyway, the name Shanaya, by the way, means I'm
on my way in the Ojibwe language, and that was
definitely a good indicator for what was to come for
(13:57):
the 26 year old singer. She moved down to Nashville
to begin working on her debut album.
Shania would describe her experience as feeling like the newbie
in town trying to find her way as an original
artist without being kicked out of town. Almost immediately, Shania
learned that she didn't quite fit in. Her label felt
her songs weren't quite country enough, so they brought in
(14:17):
some external songwriters to help her put together an album.
Released on April 20, 1993, Shania Twain's New Name, self-titled
debut album, would immediately fail to find much of an
audience and only reached number 67 on the US Country
Albums chart. In her Netflix documentary, Shanaya admitted, there's not
really that much of my creative input in the album
(14:39):
at all other than just the way I.
Sang things or the way I phrased things that sort
of thing in the studio even that didn't leave me
any room because they were 3 hour sessions. I had
no room to be creative. I had no room to
experiment and grow into the project. She did, however, find
one way in which she could express herself through her
album cover. Here she is with Bill Wolichka.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
This is where I come from. This was shot in
my hometown.
This was shot in Timmons, Ontario, uh, in a farm
field where I'm from, and that is, I mean, that's really,
that is me. I mean, now.
Not Canada necessarily, um, because I know, you know, even
here we don't get a lot of snow, but where
(15:21):
I'm from we do. I'm I'm from 500 miles north
of here. So we get, we get that snow. It's real.
Mind you, there's been a lot of people in Nashville
that has done the exact opposite of what you're thinking
and said, Now, is that fake snow? Is that wolf superimposed?
Is that real? Yes, that is real. It's all real
and it's where I'm from.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Mercury tried to help raise her profile by signing her
up for a tour across America called Triple Play featuring
two other new artists on the label, Toby Keith and
John Brannon. But considering there weren't too many female country
artists from Canada that had made it in Nashville till
that point, and by not many I mean zero, it
didn't do much to help. In fact, the only real
(16:03):
publicity Shania struck up with her first album was when
the video for her first What Made You Say That was.
And by CMT for being too suggestive. This was all
because Shaniaa decided to channel her inner Madonna and Cindy
Crawford by flashing some midriff, flirting with a shirtless guy
and embracing her sensual side. Gasp all things that just
(16:26):
didn't happen with women in country music at the time.
Here is Shania talking to much music about what made
you say that, bringing something new to the genre. Well,
Speaker 2 (16:34):
I think
that for country music, it's different, um.
I think it's kind of refreshing because it's different and
videos and country um are are fairly new really um.
It's really taking off now and it's becoming a really
great tool, and I think it's necessary. I think that
(16:55):
the people need, especially in country music, they want to
know the person that's singing that music. I think the
whole look of it was just different. It was it
was original and different, and I think that was refreshing
to people.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
While the music video was banned for a while in
the US, it actually received a lot of airplay on
CMT Europe, where it caught the eye of Robert Mutlan,
one of rock music's preeminent producers for bands like AC
DC and Def Leppard. Based in
At the time, Mutt was looking to break into producing
country music, and he was struck by Shania's beauty and
(17:26):
her ability to sing differently from other country artists. He
immediately knew that he had to work with her, so
he got in touch. The two began to talk on
the phone and became fast friends, bonding over his love
of country and her love of rock music. They would
first meet at the CMA Music Festival in June 1993
and quickly began collaborating on music together. While traveling throughout Europe,
(17:49):
they began.
A whirlwind romance that culminated in a wedding on December 28, 1993,
just six months after first meeting. The private ceremony took
place at Shania's old workplace, Deerhurst Resort. Apparently the champagne
was non-alcoholic and Lang dedicated everything I do, I do
it for you, his 1991 smash hit collaboration with Bryan
(18:11):
Adams to his new bride, which would be very sweet,
but you know the rest of that story, or do you?
I'm gonna get to that later.
Despite her debut album flopping, Once the honeymoon was over,
Shaniaa was ready to begin working on new music. She
was nearly dropped by Mercury Nashville, and her label was
hesitant to let her work with Mutt due to his
(18:31):
well-known history of rock and her sound already straying far
enough from country. But after hearing some of their demos,
they could feel the chemistry between the two and agreed
to let Mut sign on as the next album's producer.
A lot of the songs Shania had already written beforehand
in her remote cabin just outside.
Timmons expecting to use them for her debut album, but
(18:52):
the label wouldn't allow it. This time would be different though,
working with Mutt, who had co-written mega hits for Michael Bolton, Hart,
and Bryan Adams. The two would bounce ideas off each
other and finish songs together, which gave Shania this whole
other level of confidence in her songwriting. Here she is
telling Much Music's Kim Clark Champness about how Mut Lang
(19:12):
changed songwriting for
her.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Mutt brought in an element that was fresh.
And new for country music, but was very sensitive to
the sound of country music because he's such a big
fan of country. And at the same time, I was
always such a huge fan of, you know, rock and
pop and basically anything other than country. I mean, because
(19:34):
I had grown up singing country music, it was almost like, um,
I would listen to other styles of music for inspiration
to write country songs if that makes any sense. You
kind of have to get out of yourself every once
in a while to get inspiration.
And he does the opposite, so we would both tap
into each other's styles of music for inspiration. So we
really compliment each other that way, and that's why you're
hearing the balance is very unique.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Released on February 7, 1995, Shania Twain's second album, The
Woman in Me came across like a breath of fresh
air for country music. First single Whose Bed Have Your
Boots Been Under? An absolute bop. A fusion of pop
and honky tonk. It felt like Shania.
Real introduction, reaching number 31 on the Billboard Hot 100,
(20:18):
number 11 on the US country chart, and number 1
on the Canadian country chart, and the hits just kept coming.
Her next single, Any Man of Mine, topped the country
charts in both Canada and the US. The same happened
with If You're not in it for Love, I'm out
of here. You win my love, and no one needs
to Know. All of a sudden, this radio-friendly pop sound,
(20:39):
Shania and Mutt had
Brought to country music was setting a whole new standard
for the genre, and the press was taking note. Here's
what Entertainment Weekly wrote just months after the release of
The Woman and Me. Shania Twain may know how to
write a hit single, but she sure doesn't know how
to be a country star. She's from Canada, for one thing,
and doesn't live anywhere near Nashville. Not once in a
(21:01):
5 hour interview does she thank God for her success.
She doesn't even eat meat, for goodness' sake. Granted, the
29 year old singer's hair is on the big side,
but what country music star of the moment is mostly
about is breaking stereotypes. I can't tell whether that was
meant to be complimentary or not. I think it was.
The Woman in Me would become the biggest selling country
(21:22):
record of 1995 and eventually sell more than 20 million
copies worldwide. Up until that point, it would also be
the best selling female country album of all time. Shania
also won her first.
Grammy for Best Country Album and 5 Canadian Country Music
Association awards. But once again, Shania sparked some controversy, not
(21:43):
over a racy video, but in choosing not to tour
in support of her album. There was plenty of criticism
and speculation that she was a manufactured product and couldn't
actually perform live. Years later, she would explain the decision
to Billboard, saying, I didn't tour off the woman in me,
and that was part
Because I really felt I needed more powerful music under
(22:03):
my belt to get out and do a really powerful
show and one where I wasn't doing any covers. I'd
spent my whole career up until then doing covers to
make a living. It was important to me to focus
a lot on the songwriting and not to be touring
at the same time. My mindset was, right now I'm
a songwriter, I'm not a performer. I've got to put
my performance side on hold and focus on being the
(22:25):
best songwriter that I can be.
Now 30 years old, Shania may have been a new
kid on the block in country music, but with experience
and maturity, she was already a veteran of the music industry,
and she had more to prove. She was becoming a
household name in country music and ready to take the
next step, so she hired a new manager named John Landau,
(22:46):
who had been pivotal in the career of Bruce Springsteen
as his co-producer and manager.
Yes, Shania was now sharing a manager with the boss.
In the Netflix documentary. Landau would admit she wanted to
cross over to pop. She wanted to be an international superstar,
and she wanted to be an absolutely top touring artist.
Those three goals clear as a bell, first time I
(23:08):
talked to her. Oh, I love her.
Shania and Mutt got to work on a new album.
They would write everywhere together, whether it was when they
were bored at home, on the way to the grocery store, or,
you know, just chilling at Michael Bolton's house in New Jersey.
That's where I do my best writing too. She was
feeling some pressure over following up a record as big
(23:29):
as the woman in me, but Mutt kept her grounded
and gave her confidence. They used that confidence to make
this album.
More diverse by leaning deeper into their rock and pop sides.
They intended to only write songs that had the potential
to be singles and ended up with 16 in total,
coming in at over an hour's worth of music. While
not all 16 would be issued as singles, a whopping
(23:52):
12 of them were. That has to be some kind
of record, right? Naturally, half of those songs would go
on to become huge hits for Shania.
Including some ballads which her label discouraged her from writing,
but there was one song out of the bunch that
really stood out, and it came from a desire to
keep things lively. Basically, Shania was writing it to make
(24:13):
sure she didn't get bored during her concerts. Here she
is talking to Music Plus in 1997. Actually,
Speaker 2 (24:19):
a
lot of this album was written with a tour in
mind because I wanted to have an energy to say
things and
And to have a feel with the music that would
translate very well live because I didn't want to get
bored night after night. I wanted to get out there
and give the same energy every night. And so you
have to have a certain type of music to be
able to do that. And I do get bored very quickly,
so I needed something exciting and something exciting to say
(24:41):
with attitude and something with a lot of expression and
something like man, I feel like a woman is the
perfect example of that.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
The genesis of Man I Feel Like a Woman went
all the way back to 1994 while Shania and Mutt
were actually writing The Woman and Me. They were sharing
ideas back and forth when she heard him play this
one riff. Here she is explaining that moment to Vice.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
We're at the breakfast table and he's got this riff
that chug, you know, he's rocking away there on his groove,
and he goes, come on, get into some freezing.
I start singing a melody kind of bluesy down and
down and down down it just felt natural, no lyrics yet,
(25:22):
but Mutt says I want the phrase to end with
a signature hook. He was relentless with the groove and line.
CL I came up with something. He'd play the riff
and then stop and then say, You're on, it's you,
you know, bring the goods. Finally he stops at the
end of the riff and I say, man.
(25:43):
I feel like a woman. That's it. That's it.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
You got it. Shania intended for the expression, man, I
feel like a woman to be a celebration of being
a woman these days and how pretty darn fun it was. Hence,
the first lyric after that iconic guitar riff is Shania announcing,
Let's go girls. This song was meant to be a romp.
I mean, obviously it has two exclamation marks in the title,
(26:06):
but it wasn't written exclusively about women. In fact, the
inspiration behind the words came from her memories.
Performing at Deerhurst and watching the drag queens that performed
at the resort in her 2011 memoir from this moment on,
Shania wrote, Being inexperienced at applying makeup, I marveled at
how artistic and glamorous some of the men were. They
(26:27):
looked so gorgeous with features that had been defined and
exaggerated with blushes, liners, shadows, and accessories. My fascination with
this initial introduction to men transforming themselves into beautiful women
likely sowed the seed of inspiration for a song I
would write years.
Later, man, I feel like a Woman. So yes, it
is about female empowerment, but not just that. This song
(26:49):
was also about inclusion and providing a fun anthem for
anyone and everyone. She would tell the advocate, a lot
of the stuff I do has such a feminine female perspective,
but a powerful one. It's not only girl power, it's
gay power. I think that song really stands for both. Man,
I Feel Like a Woman was a hit from the
(27:09):
moment everyone heard it. I mean, come on, it's irresistible.
The combination of mutt's hooky riff, Shanna's frisky and confident vocals,
and the catchphraseness of the chorus, not a word, but
you know what I mean? All of this made it
an immediate smash hit. Bryan Adams actually recently talked about
his theory behind the opening of the song on his
(27:32):
radio show. Here's what he had to say. Back in
the 90s, I was working with Mutt Lange. We were
writing and producing songs together and it was around that
time that Mutt started working with Shania Twain.
Mutt also really loved ice hockey and so do I
and of course being Canadian, I was super happy that
he was into it as well. Now he used to
go to the games and I can remember how much
(27:54):
he loved all the crazy organ that happened in between songs.
I often think that ice hockey is the reason why
we got da da da da da da. I mean,
it does kind of have organ vibes, doesn't it? Maybe
he's right. Now the only thing stopping the song from
actually becoming a hit was.
Releasing it. Shanna's third album, Come On Over was released
(28:15):
on November 4, 1997, led by the first single, Love
Gets Me Every Time. The album followed in the footsteps
of the Woman in Me and was huge, a massive
country album that was even bigger than its predecessor. And
by that I mean it was a full-on cultural phenomenon,
not just of 1997 and 1998, but the entire decade.
(28:36):
It went straight in at number one on the album
charts in Canada, and number 2 in the US. It's
hard to believe.
In 2025, but Mac's Harlem World sold 3000 copies in
its first week of release. But Man I Feel Like
a Woman wasn't even one of the album's first singles.
It was the 7th official single from Come On Over. Seven.
(28:57):
Can you believe that? Released in March 1999, it came
a full 16 months after the album came out. And
at first it was only for country radio in the US,
but it picked up steam really fast and entered Billboard's
Hot 100 6 weeks later.
followed by the UK and the rest of the world.
And that's the thing. Shania Twain was no longer just
(29:18):
a sensation in North America. She was now a global superstar.
Part of what made the song so iconic from the
get-go was its music video, directed by Paul Boyd, Shania
flipped the script on one of the 80s most memorable
music videos, Robert Palmer's Addicted to Love, which saw him
perform with a band full of female models with pale skin,
(29:39):
heavy makeup, and dark hair, playing.
to his song. For man I feel like a Woman,
designer Mark Bauer wanted to do something unexpected, so he
put Shania in a black suit with a top hat
and a veil, leading a band of beefy male models
in tight chested tops and shiny pants playing along to
her song. The homage to Palmer's video was an obvious
(30:01):
eye wink, but with a heavy message of shouting out
her femininity. And as expected, the music video caused a
major stir in the country music industry. While the video
was
Crossing her over even more into the mainstream pop market,
country music wasn't too happy about it, but I mean,
what else is new? In the Vivo footnotes for the video,
Shania recalled how much flack she received from her peers.
(30:25):
We were taking country music to a place it hadn't
been before, and some people didn't like that. I remember
the art department saying, this is way too sexy. The
women listeners are not going to like this. They're going
to feel threatened. But Shania stuck to her vision and
knew that women would totally get it.
It's hilarious that they thought that we would feel threatened.
I just rewatched the video and all I feel is
(30:47):
the need to find that outfit for myself. And also
I might start wearing a veil, so mysterious.
And wouldn't you know it, Shania was right. Women did
get it, and to this day it remains her most
popular video on YouTube with close to a half billion views,
plus one by me just now. She would even recreate
the video when she performed at the 41st annual Grammy Awards,
(31:09):
but instead of models, she had her band dress up
in costume. Oh, and in case you were wondering, this
time Shania toured and boy, oh boy.
Ever do big business. People were jonesing to see her
live after she chose not to tour her previous album,
and they came out in millions. In fact, more than
2 million tickets were sold for a tour that lasted
(31:30):
18 months over 1998 and 1999. It was the highest
grossing tour by a female country artist at the time
and took home Country tour of the Year in both
1998 and 1999 at the
Pollar concert Industry Awards. It has been nearly 30 years
since Come On Over came out, and its significance in
country music history and music history in general cannot be overstated.
(31:54):
To date, it has sold more than 40 million copies worldwide,
and here are just some of its many notable achievements.
It is the best selling country album, the best selling
album by a Canadian artist, and the world's 8th best
selling album of all time.
Since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales in 1995, it is
the biggest selling album in Canada in the past 30 years.
(32:16):
Of all time, it is only behind Michael Jackson's Thriller.
It's also the 9th best selling album of all time
in the US and the 16th of all time in
the UK, and Guinness World Records officially recognized Come On
Over as the biggest selling studio album by a female
solo artist, period.
Did you get all that? Today Shania Twain is recognized
(32:37):
as one of the biggest artists of all time in
any genre, and she has continued that success even after
Come On Over. In total, she has sold more than
90 million albums in the past 30 years. Think about that.
An artist whose debut album was completely ignored, who essentially
came from nothing, went on to defy the odds and
sell that many records, and in doing so she.
(32:59):
Do so many barriers for both country music and female artists,
opening the door for country pop crossover artists such as
Faith Hill, Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, Kasey Musgraves, and Maren Morris.
Of course, there is more to the story. Shania moved
to Switzerland, had a son with Mutt in 2001 named Asia,
and then divorced Mutt in 2008 after he had an
(33:22):
affair with her best friend.
And then 2 years later, she remarried the ex-husband of
that best friend. I want to see the made for
TV movie about that.
It was kind of a spouse swap, but both couples
are still together, so who knows, maybe it was for
the best. What I do know is that Man I
Feel Like a Woman has never lost its mojo. In
(33:45):
the early 2000s, Chevy used it as an ad for
its Colorado truck, featuring one guy singing along to the
song inside the truck while his bros looked very confused.
It's fine, but the premise is ridiculous because you know
they would all be singing along. Britney Spears sang the
song with her.
Pals in her movie Crossroads, iconic film, and Shania herself
(34:06):
surprised everyone at Coachella in 2022 when she joined headliner
Harry Styles for a performance of Man I Feel Like
a Woman. That was pretty cool. And I'm sure Harry
has done that song a few times at karaoke because
just about everyone has, as Jennifer Hudson revealed when Shania
visited her show. Check this
Speaker 2 (34:24):
out. And man, I feel like a Woman is the
number one karaoke song of all time.
God,
how does that feel? Like
I think that is so cool. So I did, I
would never have imagined that, you know, that I would
ever have, you know, the biggest karaoke song in the world, but, um,
I think it's right, um.
(34:47):
But I, I, I uh I enjoy the compliments and
I can just imagine um.
I mean, every person in the world can sing that
song with an exclamation mark. It's just a statement kind
of feel good song. It is a feel good song
and we all love
that song, right?
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Shan calls man I feel like a Woman a real
pinnacle point in her career, but she also knows that
song doesn't just belong to her, it belongs to everyone.
In an interview with Billboard, she summed it up best
when she said, Man, I feel like a woman never
gets old. The audience entertains me more than I entertain them,
I think, on that song. There's a lot of gay
men out there that just sing that song from the.
(35:29):
Bottom of their heart and they take it on as
an anthem. It's got such a beautiful spirit in that sense.
I just love it. Everybody gets into it in their
own way, and it's got an anthemic quality to it
that's so beyond what I ever could have imagined it
would develop into. For men, for women. For women, it's
their party song. It comes to life every night and
(35:49):
I don't think I'll ever get bored of it.
Me either, Shannaa. Let's go girls. I'm Ruby Carr and
that was Encore and the story behind Shania Twain, man,
I feel like a woman. nah. I'm gonna go kick
a door down, but don't forget we've got new episodes
every Thursday, so don't miss next week. Encore is an
(36:12):
iHeart Radio Canada podcast. Download the free iHeart Radio app
and subscribe. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming.
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