60 Songs That Explain the '90s - Shania Twain—“Man! I Feel Like a Woman!”

Episode Date: March 10, 2021

Rob explores country icon Shania Twain’s crossover hit “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” by discussing her pioneering within and outside of Nashville as well as her professional and personal relationship with producer Mutt Lange. This episode was originally produced as a Music and Talk show available exclusively on Spotify. Find the full song on Spotify or wherever you get your music. Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Marissa R. Moss Producers: Isaac Lee and Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to a music and talk episode where full songs and talk segments play together only on Spotify. Best of all, you can create your own music and talk show for free with Anchor Spotify's podcasting platform. Get started at anchor.fm-fm-f-M-C-H-O-R-F-M-U-S-I-S-I-S-M-U-S-I-S-I-S-E-L-L-K. A lot of spelling there, but just do it. My stereo in high school in the mid-90s was one of those stacked combo CD player tape deck radio deals. Might have bought it at Best Buy.

Might have bought it at Radio Shack. Might have bought it out of a Sears catalog. Might have bought it off the back of a covered gypsy wagon pulled by oxen that rumbled from town to town. This was a single CD player, not the coveted three or even five disc changer, where you could hit shuffle and it would arduously whir to life like Ultron, like Z. and physically change CDs between each and every song. It took like 20 seconds. Very soothing rhythm, actually.

No, what my modest single-disc CD player had was the preview function. It could play just the first 10 seconds of every track on a CD one after the other. I did not see the point of this. I did not need to ascertain the vibe of Radioheads, the bends before committing to just playing it. I got it. Thanks, but I loved that stereo. It finally conked out in college.

Frankly, I don't think it broke so much as resigned in protest. One day, it was just like, dude, that's enough bill to spill and went, but regardless, I vowed to honor my stereo's years of service by throwing it off the Richland Avenue Bridge at Ohio University. A Viking funeral of sorts, not OSU, the other one. This bridge was like maybe 30 feet over a ravine marsh type situation. We were going to clean it up right after. My buddy Jeff was going to stand in the marsh to dissuade any pedestrians or raccoons.

He probably would have done this. We were bored. I wasn't even drunk when I hatched this scheme. I spent most of college playing Golden Eye for N64 and drinking Dr. Pepper. But anyway, I didn't do it to throw my stereo off a bridge thing. I chickened out. I don't know what the cops would have charged me with. Being an asshole, probably very common charge at OU.

Happy Halloween. One time I started what came to be known nationally is the time change riot by playing too many Afghan wig songs on Ohio University's college radio station on a Saturday night. It's a true story. I'll tell that story some other time. My point is that the preview function on my beloved CD player was invented for basically one artist and that Shania Twain. If I'd played more Shania Twain in college, my stereo would probably still be working today and would have self-generated its own five. disc changer just to accommodate more Shania Twain CDs. Nobody starts a song like Shania Twain. Nobody brings such exuberance, such wonder, such charisma. It's inimitable. Cool. See, I can't do it.

Nobody pulls you onto the dance floor more forcefully. That one was from a song called Don't Be Stupid, You Know I Love You, Offer Blockbuster 1997 album, Come On Over. That's don't be stupid, parentheses, you know I love you, close Shanaya Twain deserves to be as famous for her use of punctuation as E.E. Cummings is for not using punctuation. I would argue that parentheses, don't be stupid. Close parentheses. You know I love you is funnier, but she's the expert. That's from a song called Honey, I'm Home. That's honey, comma, I'm home. The comma is crucial. That's from a song called I'm holding on to love to save my life. That's I'm holding on to love, parentheses, to save my life, close parentheses. No notes on this use of parentheses. That's from a song called Love Gets Me Every Time.

No parentheses at all. It's a little thing called Restraint. That's from a song called You Win My Love. The music videos themes are go-karts and leather pants. Let's go. That's from a song called I'm going to get you good, exclamation point. Getcha is spelled G-E-T-C-H-A. She's on her third straight diamond-selling album at this.

point, Shania is. This is from Up in 2002. Up! Exclamation Point. Diamond means more than 10 million copies sold in the United States alone per album. The themes in the I'm going to get you good video are sci-fi motorbikes and goth kitars. It's like Akira crossed with nine-inch nails, but fun! Exclamation point! I love that one, just the slight, thrilled uncertainty of it. That's from a song called Whatever You Do, don't. That's whatever you do, exclamation point, don't, exclamation point. If you require a slightly more famous Shania song, all right, fine, any man of mine. Take notes, gentlemen. That's from her first diamond selling album, The Woman and Me from 1995. This is the moment when her talent for beginnings truly begins.

I threw in this one mostly because this song is called I'm Not in the Mood to Say. no. That's I'm not in the mood, parentheses to say no, exclamation point, close parentheses. Forgive my indulgence here, my various indulgences already. I am enjoying myself. Shania Twain, above all, is dedicated to goading

you and to enjoying yourself. And never more so than on one of her biggest, one of her best, one of her most enduring hits, and one of the better first 10 seconds in pop music history. And so I say unto you now, let's go, everyone.

Let's go, girls. Come on. My name is Rob Harvilla. This is 60 songs that explain the 90s, and yes, thank goodness, at long last, that is man, I feel like a woman. That's man, exclamation point, I feel like a woman, exclamation point. But you already knew that, didn't you? 1997's Come on Over has actually sold more than 20 million copies in America. That's double diamond.

It's not even a real thing. Come on over is the 12th best-selling album in United States history. It's just above no fences by our friend Garth Brooks and just below Fleetwood Max Rumors. Shanaya and Garth ruled country music in the 90s, their charisma, their exuberance, their audacious sense of mega crossover scale. I would play you the chorus of friends in little places at this point, but I suspect that Garth's lawyers would have me thrown off the Richland Avenue Bridge. I implore you, though, to go down a 90s country wormhole sometimes, especially if you didn't spend much time in that wormhole at the time. Go listen to Reba McIntyre's Fancy.

Go listen to Martina McBride's Independence Day. Go listen to The Chicks Goodbye Earl. Go watch the end of Con Air. Go listen to Sammy Kershaw's meant to be personal favorite. The theme of that video is We're at the airport. You know what song kicks ass? Neon Moon by Brooks and Dunn. Here are your aforementioned friends in low places.

Watch your broken dreams dancing out of the beams of a neon moon. Let's be reductive and say that a truly great country song either makes you burst into tears in a crowded bar or gets you to scream along to the chorus in a crowded bar. Man, I feel like a woman is a scream-along song with just the faintest aura of a burst into tears song. It was quietly revolutionary within that. 90s country wormhole for its spectacular warmth for its joyous sense of inclusion within country music's sordid history of exclusion in 2004 the advocate interviewed shenaya and praised man i feel like a woman as a great cross-dressing anthem and she said it's something i'm really proud of a

lot of the stuff i do as such a feminine female perspective but a powerful one it's not only girl power it's gay power yeah it's g power so this song is shenaya's attempt to pitch as large and wide a tent as humanly possible. You can't even call it the subtext. To repeat, the title of this song is man exclamation point. I feel like a woman exclamation point. The music video takes the 80s glam fembot backing band concept from Robert Palmer's addicted to love, but flips the genders.

So Shania's backing band is a bunch of vacant looking pretty boys. She's wearing a veil and a really aggressively tilted top hat. It's brilliant. The sad part here, if you're like, me and you always insist on finding the sad part, is that this song, like pretty much every song on all three of Shania's diamond-selling albums, is also a spirited dialogue, a personal chemistry explosion, an exultant love letter passed back and forth between Shania and her husband and superstar producer, Mutt Lange. And that story, on a personal chemistry level, would end a betrayal, would end a disaster, would end with her broken dreams dancing in and out of the beams of a neon moon. But, Maybe all that still doesn't matter. Maybe even now, when she forget she's a lady, she forgets about all that other bullshit, too. One of the best-selling artists in American country music history is, and I bet you knew this, too, Canadian.

Eileen Regina Edwards was born in Windsor, Ontario in 1965. She grew up mostly in Timmons, Ontario, big logging town, big gold mining town. The Twain part came first. As a child, she took her stepfather Jerry Twain's last name. The Shania part would come later when Nashville insisted on a flashier stage name. In 2011, Shania wrote a memoir called From This Moment On, and that book is harrowing. Extreme poverty, domestic abuse, child abuse, sexual harassment and abuse. Her mother and stepfather died in a terrible car accident in 1987.

Shanaya put her musical career on hold for a while to care for her younger siblings. If you're Shania, or if you're reading Shania, you take the quick bird, of happiness and freedom and frivolity where you can find them. Before the death of her parents, she writes about living in Toronto, living in the big city at 18 years old, writing songs, trying to make it, and sometimes she'd go out with her friends to gay bars, load up on eyeliner, spike up their hair, dress to excess, and dance all night to Madonna's material girl and Prince's When Doves Cry and UB40's Red Red Wine.

Maybe file that scene away for later, the way she filed it away, for when she truly became Shanaya and got to write her own songs and control her own style and use as many exclamation points as she wanted. There's an argument to be made that this is Shanaya Twain at her happiest,

not as a famous person singing about dancing and clubbing, but actually dancing and clubbing is a not at all famous person. A lot of the time most of us wish we were someone else. or some other version of ourselves. Maybe file that away, too. She makes it to Nashville. She gets a record deal.

She puts out her first album in 1993. It's called Shania Twain. She doesn't like it. Pretty much nobody does. She laments in her autobiography that the songs her label pitched her were formulaic cookie cutter stuff. She likens the recording process to

knocking out commercial jingles. She poses on the cover with a wolf. Her voice sounds powerful. powerful and buoyant and distinctive, but it also sounds like she's trapped in a deep well, and she's singing up to the wolf, who is staring down at her, confused from the mouth of the well. The whole situation is suboptimal. The first 10 seconds of every track are all super boring. The best song on Shania Twain, not coincidentally, is the only song she co-wrote.

It's called God Ain't Gonna Get You for that. That's right. G-E-T-C-H-A. There she is. I dig the men. message here, you're not going to go to hell for dancing with me. But overall, this is one of those albums that's fascinating because you get to marvel at how an incredibly successful person initially failed. Or really, you marvel at how Nashville failed her. Shania Twain's lead single is called

What Made You Say That, which is unremarkable apart from the music video, in which she cavorts with a vacant looking stud on the beach. One of Shania's outfits bears her midriff, which was quite scandalous at the time. CMT at first refused to play it. The winter memoir, Shania still doesn't get all the fuss. She's way more offended now by her bushy eyebrows. It's not exactly the wicked game video. But the clip for what made you say that serves one very important purpose in that it attracts the attention, professional, and otherwise, of one Robert John, quote, mutt and quote, lange super producer, ACDC, Def Leopard, Brian Adams, Billy Ocean, etc. His deaf leopard associations will be most important for our purposes.

Mutt and Shania talk on the phone. They meet in person. They start writing saws together. They start canoodling. Soon they will be married. Soon, Shania Twain's second album, 1995's The Woman and Me, will emerge with mutton toe, but Shania very much in the driver's seat. Soon, the woman and me will sell 12 million copies in the United States. The gargantuan arena crossover force of the union between these two people can first truly be felt on the song Any Man of Mine. You heard the first few seconds of that one a little while ago, but the moment in this song, when the beat shifts from We Will Rock You to something a little more pedal steel friendly, is a stupendous moment indeed. Shania is born. Shanaya and Mut are born.

The modern crossover country superstar is born. So, Def Leopard. Death Leopard's hysteria, produced by Mutt, of course, was my favorite album of the 80s as I lived the 80s, as I grew up in the 80s. It sounds colossal. It sounds triumphant. It sounds adolescent. It sounds so elaborate sonically that it's almost post-human. If you can't rage against the machine, join it.

As a child, I was mercifully not fully attuned to the lyrical vibe of the song, pour some sugar on me, pornographic, or even aware. of the existence of the ideal setting in which to hear pour some sugar on me, strip club, but I got enough of the point, and I fully accepted that colossal, triumphant, adolescent, post-human beat into the very depths of my nine-year-old soul. Shania Twain made the Mutt Lange experience sound exhilaratingly human. That stupendous beat switch on any man of mine, it would be back and further superpowered on 1997's Come On Over,

on the aforementioned jam, Honey, comma, I'm home. Holy shit. That's mutt on backing vocals there, on the counterpoint hay action. Mutt Lange did not invent Shania Twain, nor did Shania Twain invent Mutt Lange. Instead, organically, these two lovebirds

brought out the biggest and best versions of each other, at least for a while. All those rad intros, all the songs that start with Shania going, cool, hit it, kick it, ow, come on, let's go. Don't take this personal, but she's not talking to you, so much as she's talking to her husband.

In her memoir, Shanaya singles out the power ballad, you're still the one. The first time, Mutt added a little counter melody to the end of the chorus. She says it gave her chills. She calls it a magic moment. And she's right. No exclamation point in the song title,

You're still the one, but you can still hear it, right? At one crucial moment on this record, Shanaya does duet with an actual country singer, Brian White, on another power ballad from this moment on. which has served as the first wedding dance for approximately 22% of all married couples for the last 23 years. There are days when this song is my absolute favorite instance of two human voices harmonizing. Any genre, any era, any two people.

And this is one of those days. Shania Twain has never had a number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100. From this moment on got the closest. Number two. couldn't quite beat out too close by next yeah next the r&b group yeah too close the boner song worthy freaking adversary that don't impress me much peaked at number seven that don't impress me much is a whole lot of fun i think you'll agree okay so you're brad pitt that don't impress me much somehow it took shenaya until 2017 to finally explain that she'd been baking christmas

Christmas cookies with her friend, and they were discussing this scandal where Playgirl had published naked photos of Brad Pitt. And looking back, Shania says, I just thought, I don't know what all the fuss is about. I'm like, well, that don't impress me much. I mean, what is all the fuss? We see people naked every day, end quote. There's something both so perverse and so chaste about this statement. We see naked people every day. Do we, though, Shania? Shanaya Twain was on the cover of Rolling Stone twice. Once to promote Come On Over, wants to promote up.

She is bare midrift both times, but there is a tension both times between the human being and the public persona, between Eileen and Shanaya. This being Rolling Stone, she talks about her sexuality, but she talks about her sexuality like it's somebody else's sexuality, and maybe it is.

The truth is, I'm distracted by very little besides music. When it really gets down to it, for instance, I am not a sexual person. My mind isn't there. I mean, I'm very satisfied and I'm not hard to satisfy, but I'm not one of those people who just always has this desire. I don't think like that. Never did. Always had total control of my sexual habits. End quote, Rolling Stone cover story. Remarkable. Tension of this sort is maybe an unavoidable side effect of selling 19 million copies of one album, the focus that requires, and the disassociation from your offstage self that requires,

the total disillusion of your offstage self. It's not just the loss of privacy, the paparazzi, whatever, it's the grind, it's the hamster wheel. Shania writes about wishing she'd get the flu just so she'd have to take the day off. She writes about being in a Las Vegas hotel suite, high up with floor-to-ceiling windows, and she fantasizes about getting a running start and jumping through the window, Not opening the window and jumping, crashing through the window like a superhero, or like an ordinary human who desperately needs a break. So back we go on man, I feel like a woman, to the gay clubs of Toronto. Not physically. She's too busy. She's too famous. We're going back there emotionally. So you there, in the crowded bar, screaming along to all the words to this song, you may be in that moment imagining yourself as a super famous pop star.

You're fantasizing about being Shania Twain. But believe it or not, in this moment, actually singing the song and being the super famous pop star, Shanaya Twain may very well be fantasizing about being you, a normal, frivolous, average, sexy person, having fun with no suffocating pop star responsibilities whatsoever in a crowded bar where no one notices you. I don't want to be this guy who explains to you why all upbeat pop songs are actually sad. It's obnoxious. I got to knock it off. Sometime I'm going to take a super sad song and argue that it's actually happy.

This is my pledge to you. It is soothing to hear Shania talk about how she doesn't need love and romance all the time necessarily. Anyway, I've wondered for 20 odd years now whether this line, is actually true. And I don't know much, but I know enough to know that I should never ask. Undeniably, Shania Twain and Muttlain's were good for each other for a long while, professionally and personally. Among various other gaudy accomplishments, they set the blueprint for how a country star might cross over and become a full-blown pop star, Taylor Swift and what have you. At times for Shania, this crossover process was alarmingly literal. Her two thousand

two album Up, quite famously, came in three versions. Same songs, three different versions. The green version was country, green grass of home. The red version was straight pop, the heat of pop, and the blue version was global pop. The blue sky is the limit. But come on over, it had a whole subtly reworked international version as well, and some other remixes and such that were not subtle at all.

Here's a very intense dance remix of Don't Be Stupid parentheses, know I love you, close parentheses. In the video, she's river dancing in a pool of water, a bunch of fiddlers behind her. There's a very friend's specific 90s energy. It's intense. Intense but trued and profitable and successful at making Shania Twain all things to all people. Even if Shania works so hard, she can never quite be all things to herself. She tried.

Of course, she and Mutt had a son, Asia. Here is Shania singing a lovely little lullaby, she wrote, for her son. son. Asia D. Can you count to one, two, three? She's singing this lullaby on Tony Danza's talk show, but it's still lovely. Anyway, Mutt and Shania divorced in 2008. Good old mutt finally broke the spell when he had an affair with one of Shania's good friends, Anne-Marie Tebow, who was married herself.

You know, it's probably not the best thing about being a woman, dealing with men who live their whole lives as though they're in a death leopard video. Shanaya would go on to remarry Anne Marie's jilted husband, Frederick Thieboh, and they are happily married to this day. It's not spelled like Tim Tebow. This guy is Swiss. It's like a country song that you can remix into a pop song and then a global pop song. That's obnoxious. Largely due to her divorce, Shanaya had a rough descent from superstardom.

For quite a long time, she lost her voice physically due to vocal cord paralysis after she was bitten by a tick. and contracted Lyme disease. The road back to some semblance of present tense stardom has involved a harrowing memoir and a reality show or two, and starting in 2011, a lucrative Las Vegas residency. I hope she's feeling better about Vegas hotel rooms these days.

As part of her Vegas show, she'd come on stage to sing, you're still the one while riding a horse. I just watched a clip of Shania and the horse on YouTube, and I got chills. I'm serious. She's nuzzling the horse as the piano. was playing, looks like we made it, et cetera.

In 2018, she put out her fifth album, Now, which was remarkably wounded and raw and unsettled in a quite effective way. One headline from this comeback era in The Guardian read, I said I wanted a break, not for 15 years. The lead

single for this album is called Life's About to Get Good. Pretty rough first 10 seconds or so. My impulse on this show, when the artist in question goes through and especially rough patch after her career peak is to brusquely skim through the rough patch, mission accomplished once again, and just focus on the peak. That is usually where I want to leave her and leave you on top of the world singing her best song. But when it comes to Shania Twain, when it comes to

man, I feel like a woman, I don't know that this moment is her single happiest place, despite her mega fame, despite her then adoring first husband. Instead, my impulse is still to to leave her in Toronto, to leave 18-year-old Eileen Twain in Toronto, with her gang of friends, some of whom she may not have realized were gay yet, dancing to Madonna and UB40 in gay bars. No pop star obligations, no paparati cameras, no tabloid pitfalls, free to be their best selves, their true selves, whoever or whatever that might be. I feel like a woman. Because I suspect that the best thing about being Shania Twain is that you don't necessarily have to be here all the time.

My guest today is Marissa R. Moss, who writes for Rolling Stone, Billboard, and many other publications. She's writing a book about the women of country music called Where Have All the Cowgirls Gone? Thank you so much for being here today, Marissa. Thanks for having me. Of course. You wrote a great piece for Rolling Stone in 2017 when her last album, came out about Shania's lasting influence on country music. How do young country music artists see Shania now? Who do they picture?

What do they picture? What did Nashville learn ultimately from her megastar years? Yeah. I think I learned a lot of really surprising things when I had reported out that piece because I had always seen this really interesting thing that Shania went through a phase of, you know, everyone goes through ups and downs and part. popular favor, but I had seen that even kind of amongst quote more indie musicians in Nashville in and out of music row had really started to look up to Shania and kind of make this transition

around her music, or at least what I thought was always a transition and came to find out was this really kind of fundamental relationship to her music that started really young for a lot of artists. You know, you take someone like Caitlin Rose feels just as influenced by Shania as Kelsey Ballerini. So people from independent labels to massive sort of pop crossover stars really found power and freedom and the ability to play and a certain kind of feminism really from Shanaya, which is really interesting to me. Yeah, I just saw actually that Haim, I don't know if they have a podcast or what it is, but they just interviewed Shanaya and like sort of talked about how they're huge Shanaya fans, which I would not have thought of. But now that I think of it,

it makes perfect sense. Like, if you listen to Haim, like you can hear it there, you know, even if it never was particularly tangible to you. The musicians that you interviewed for that piece, like Caitlin Rose, Lindy Ortega,

Kaylee Shore, like, I love all those artists. Like, do you hear Shania in their music, in newer country music? Like, is her influence now as much about attitude as it is about sound?

Yeah, I mean, I would, you know, it's easy to kind of point to, like, Kelsey Ballerini and obviously

Taylor Swift when she was in country, but like, I would argue that you, in some ways you wouldn't have like the massive success of like Eric Church and Luke Combs without Chenaya Twain. Because I mean, for a lot of reasons, but also we kind of forget that she brought in this rock sound

and rock production when we're talking about her sort of popness. And that was really big too, because that opened a whole new, you know, a whole new world to different guitar sounds. And so, you know, if you pay attention, you see her everywhere. Right, now I'm thinking, like, I've seen Eric Church live a bunch of times, like at arena shows.

And now I'm thinking, I never got to see Shania in her pride, but now I'm thinking there's probably not a great deal of difference in a Shania arena show and an Eric Church arena show. You know, that's a lot closer together than you might think. Yeah, I've seen them both. And I only got to see Shania on her, you know, more recent tour or whatever year that was. I have no concept of time anymore. But, um, some time. But yeah, I mean, just kind of the boomed basketball. like larger than life moments,

but then alternating with, you know, really refined pullback country, same songwriter stuff and it all flowing together in this like really awesome, crazy arena, massive deal. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Do you remember your first personal exposure to Shania or like the first Shania song that really got to you? I came to Shania a little bit later

through my dad who was obsessed with 90s country, but really mostly Shania Twain. So for me, any man of mine was kind of like my first big Shania hook in that. Because I think he loved it because like it was still very country. I mean, if you, we didn't quite think that at the time. But if you listen back now, you're like, whoa, this is super country. But I don't know. It was just kind of mischievous if you really listen to it.

And it was like, you better stay in line. Like, you know, kind of in this real like innocent presentation too. always with that wing that Shania was so good at. Yeah, because thinking about Shania and Garth Brooks, like, as the two most dominant forces in 90s country music, is there any way now to put into context, like how huge they were then and, like, how many records they sold?

Like, is Taylor Swift a comparable figure now to Shania then, or was, like, the 90s music industry, just an entirely different universe? Yeah, I mean, I think Taylor Swift is obviously the closest, but, I mean, she stands alone. kind of now in being our figure of this, you know, crazy scope. And you had so many tools back then. Like you had CMT and MTV and all these things like pushing,

especially Chennai for talking about videos, you know, to the forefront. And we were, I mean, in country music after Taylor, we were only really starting to get close. Like I only started to hear people talking about sort of a next Chenaya figure when we got to Morgan Wallen, which now in hindsight, it's like, ugh, God. but we're never getting quite that close, I think, just because it was a totally different set of rules.

Yeah. You wrote a little about the video for a man, I feel like a woman, like the addicted to love parody. Like has any other country star in history ever come close to Shania's talent for videos? Like maybe that's just timing. Like she arrived around the heyday of MTV and VH1 and CMT.

But like I feel like Shania stands alone in country music for just her power to use music videos. Yeah, and she really understood that even when, you know, when Shania came in well before, man, I feel like woman or any of kind of that massive third album come over stuff or even women in me. But even before that, she was playing with showing her belly button and had videos sort of initially banned from Sam T

and was getting that pushback because she was more interested in kind of like what pop stars were doing and playing with in terms of presentation. So she really pushed that. And, you know, that coincided, obviously, with music videos being a real thing that people still cared about and watched and liked. Not that they don't now, but it's obviously really different. It's different. Yeah, I don't think anyone has come even closer or tried. You know, it's a great visual medium and it's fun and it's used differently, but I don't think it's come anywhere near to, you know, what Chenaya was able to do.

Yeah, because I still think about the leopard print, like hood coats. I think it was that don't impress me much, that video. I hope I have that right. But that's just sort of seared into my brain for no particular reason. But I'm not mad at it. Yeah. How can I mean? And now like any time you see leper print in any context, at least for me, I know.

Exactly. I think about Chenaya Twain, like no matter what. Absolutely. That is it. That is just Shanaya from now on and ever. And like kind of perfect for like a country artist. You know, we're not talking about a cowboy hat. We're talking about like tight.

leopard print. Absolutely. I'm always interested to see, like, after a couple decades, like, what song emerges is, like, a super famous artist's most famous song, like, whether you measure that in, like, Spotify plays or YouTube views or whatever. Do you think, man, I feel like a woman is the single most beloved Shania song now? And is that what you would have predicted would be her signature hit, like, at the time? There's so many good ones.

Like, it's amazing when you look back, and you're like, holy cow, there were so many. hits. And I mean, and that was intentional to reach beyond country music because she went back and she remixed everything, so it had this big, broad audience. But when I saw her live, you know, man, I feel like a woman was like

the moment. Everyone just like kind of going wild for that one. It's kind of irresistible. You write about, you talk about the travesty of country radio now, like how in hospitable country radio is to female artists. Could a Shania Twain caliber star

emerge from Nashville right now, or is the whole system built in opposition to that, like no matter how undeniable the songs are? I mean, for a man. Right. Maybe. I mean, it was obviously a very different time in country radio. You had a lot of forces going on at the time. She kind of slid in right before country music really hit its, like, super patriotic phase

after 9-11. You had the, you know, getting too wonky here, but you had the telecom act coming in. You have all these forces that are just going to narrow and push, push women out. And you have, you know, country music has been developing superstars, but just not quite in the same way, with the exception, obviously, of Taylor Swift, who kind of like Shania, I think people see in some way as like, you know, Taylor Swift obviously, quote, left country music, although not really. But I know there's a lot of feelings about, you know,

Chenaya Twain leaving America altogether and living abroad and not doing her, you know, sort of paying her dues, whatever that should be in Nashville, that you're supposed to, you know, sacrifice to the altar of country radio every year. But yeah, probably not a woman. I feel like being Canadian in the first place that exempt you from having to pay your dues as an American. But, yeah, unfortunately, that does make a certain amount of sense. You mentioned that Chenaya had some hard years sort of in and out of the public eye,

like her divorce, like she lost her voice, pretty long road to her comeback. Her last album is really wounded and raw. Does all of that change your perception of Come On Over or The Woman and Me Now? Does man, I feel like a woman or you're still the one hit any difference to you now? It does.

I think a lot of people had made kind of a journey with Chenaya's music too in that whether or not you meant to feel this. A lot of us were really programmed to kind of take her her songwriting ownership away from those moments. Right, right. You just heard, you know, mutling, mutling, mutting, and you were sort of made to think for reasons that are misogynist and therefore easy to understand that she was sort of just sitting there,

like looking pretty. And hopefully we've now, for the most part, most people have come to understand that that is not at all the case and that she was extremely present in a massive part of her success and vision, an equal partner, and then on her last record, a full songwriting force. So I hope that has changed the way people look back on her catalog in terms of, like, oh, what we were told about Shanaya Twain and her artistic control and her mastery is maybe not accurate. Yeah. The way Dolly Part Now is this rightfully beloved figure, you know,

there are books, there are giant podcasts, there's proposals for statues. Like there always seems to be this growing realization that Dolly is this international treasure? Do you think that Shania ever aspired to that level of deification? Like even at her peak, Shania always struck me relatively as like a fairly private person for like a huge superstar. Yeah, I mean, just like what we were saying before, like going and moving away, you know, off the continent. Like, Enada, you know, and living in some kind of secluded. Blair in the snow. Like, that's not, you know,

that's not building a Dollywood. And so it never seemed she, you know, weirdly had like a very, it's strange to say, because you're talking about Canada and Tennessee, but like kind of a very sort of similar childhood to Dolly. Yeah. But I don't think ever sort of aspired for that same kind of dolliness in that like sort of permanence in culture.

I did get an email like two hours ago about Shania, doing a TikTok challenge around man, I feel like a woman, like she's trying to get people to turn let's go girls into a meme. Do you think teenagers now have any grasp on who Shania is and how important she is? I hope so, but...

Yes. I don't know. I'm always like, I feel like Shania is always one that I'm like very happily surprised to hear pop up because I do think that we know that country music resonates far beyond just it resonates everywhere and shenaya and sort of rediscovering shenaya and there's so much in her songs in terms of empowerment and sort of taking no bull from the men around you and and all of that that I think does hopefully resonating

with a younger generation that is sort of playing with you know even gender roles or you know what they're sort of quote supposed to do in society and shenai was really good at that and and I hope a lot of people are sort of rediscovering that, but also the sort of sheer fun and pop power in her music. Yeah. So I hope that TikTok kind of

I'm like way too old to even talk about that, but I mean, like, reignites some Shania love. However, the kids get into Shania is totally fine with me. Yeah, I'll take it. Or through Kelsey Ballerini, who did like an awesome... Right, right. Yeah, yeah. That's a great song.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Thank you so much for being here, Marissa. We really appreciate it. Sure. Thanks for having me. Many thanks to my guest this week, Marissa Moss. Thanks to our producers, Isaac Lee and Justin Sales. And thanks to you, as always, for listening. And now, without further ado, here is Shania Twain with man, I feel like a woman. We'll see you next week.