W L INTERVIEW
This was the very first time I ' ve done that . But I was so ready to do it . You know , after all the alone time writing . Not that I ' d , you know , tapped out on my isolating writing because I do love to write that way , you know , by myself . But I just felt like , well , I just cannot wait to get in a room and share these ideas with some other creatives .
Even though they all have quite lively production , the acoustic guitar seems to be the core of several of these songs . Oh , absolutely , I ' m quite sure I can say with confidence that every single song was me started on the acoustic guitar . That is normally the way I start any song , you know . Everyone else also played acoustic guitar , so it was great . It was a very organic way of working for me to be able to sit around with just acoustic guitars and me on a microphone . I think I ' m really a folky at heart , and I spent so much of my youth doing folk festivals and singing around in places with my guitar , coffee shops , and stuff like that . So , everything I did kind of sounded folky , whether it was country , or pop , or rock , it just ends up going there to that place when you ' re sitting there with an acoustic guitar .
It ' s often a nice way to test the strength of a song as well , isn ' t it ? Just strip it down and make sure that it just works on a guitar . Oh , absolutely ; I mean , take a song like “ I Will Always Love You ,” the Dolly Parton version . That was definitely her , this mountain girl who might even have plucked it out on a banjo for all we know , initially , who knows . But my vision is of her sitting there with an acoustic guitar singing this song in a very folky style . And yet , if you ' ve never heard that version , you would only know the version sung by Whitney Houston , which you would not relate at all starting out , with just a mountain girl writing it on her acoustic guitar . So , I think it ' s probably true for a lot of great songs , you know , with someone sitting at one instrument . I mean , maybe Paul McCartney was doing it on a piano . Maybe you wouldn ' t say you know they were folky sounding , but the one voice , the one instrument , and you ' ve got a great song .
We don ' t think you ' re credited enough for your ear for a chorus . You know not that it should ever be in doubt after all those diamond records , but you really know how to make a chorus arrive , don ' t you ? Well , I do love a good chorus . I think I ' m a pop lover . I really love a great pop song , and a great pop song always has the perfect chorus , and that is really just the perfect journey and the perfect rise and fall and lift and all of that . So , it ' s not so much about structure as it is about peaking in the peak of the story , to me it happens in the chorus , and then the result is also , you know , really important to me anyway , song ends . But yeah , great chorus , and you just can ' t beat it .
It doesn ' t have to be the story hook . It doesn ' t even need a lyric , really . I think it ' s more just a peak . It ' s gotta rise above everything else in the song in order to really take you there . The melody is probably more important to me than the phrasing so that you can sing along with it , or la la la along with it , or whatever it is . The lyric hook can be just in one sentence . It can be like two words or three words . I mean , like “ Man , I feel like a woman ,” you know , that was really just a statement at the end of the chorus , and that is not the chorus . But that is the hook .
As I said , I was writing so much in isolation , which I do normally anyway , but it was so long extended , and there was a psychological thing about being forced into isolation that by the time we were allowed to be more than one or two people in the room it was exciting to me and I said to the A & R department I ' m like totally ready to get in the room with others and just see what happens . I ' ve never done it before ; it would be a new experience . I don ' t know how I will react . I don ' t know if I ' ll be good at it if it ' s gonna be productive or not , but I ' d love to try it . So , let ' s see what happens . I ' m really excited about the unknown .
Did your COVID pneumonia affect your voice ? It ' s true I was literally three days out of my COVID recovery ... I feel like I ' d written three albums in that COVID time of isolation , and you know , aloneness in my creativity , again , which I really do love , and I thrive in that environment . I remember with “ Best Friend ” and “ Brand New Me ,” I was on the microphone that session with both those songs , and I had just recovered from COVID pneumonia , and I really was not vocally there yet . But there was a rawness in the vocals that I think came out really well , and those are the vocals we ended up using .
There was some nice footage towards the end of your documentary where you were in writing sessions , looked really interesting . It was ; I looked so forward to it . I was a little nervous about it because I didn ' t want to let anybody down . I didn ' t want to get in the room and go , oh , brother , like are they gonna think , what the hell , like Shania doesn ' t know what the hell she ' s doing . Or they maybe have had expectations of , you know , how I was as a songwriter in the raw , who was I really as a writer without production , and nobody actually knew that except for Mutt ( cowriter / producer Mutt Lange - Shania ’ s ex-husband ). So now I was opening myself up , my actual raw , vulnerable songwriter self .
So , you ’ re walking in there as a triple diamond selling songwriter as well , aren ' t you ? So , it ' s nerve-wracking for them , but it ' s nerve-wracking for you , too . Well , I was just a little bit worried because I didn ' t know how to write in a group ; I didn ' t even know where to start . So , I just started with OK , I ' ve got this idea . You wanna hear it ? We just sort of start from the ground up , and I think the producers also really appreciate when the artist comes in with an idea for a song because , after all , they are the artist . Otherwise , you might as well just get songs sent to you and then sing them .
With that in mind , then does that mean that you ' ll ultimately end up authoring the lyrics no matter who you work with on a song ? Or would you be taking suggestions on words as well ? Oh no , I do take suggestions . I can be a little dominating . I think I ' m pretty easy to get along with . But because I ' m the one that is gonna be singing it , I ' m pretty clear on what I would sing and what I wouldn ' t sing . So I might have come across as a little bit bossy sometimes , but it was all fun .
Would the song ever spring forth from just the title ? Because you ' ve always had such striking titles . Titles that hook you into the song before you ’ ve even heard it . Yeah , “ Queen of Me ” is a good one , actually . When I started that I was going to write King of Me because I thought , well , OK , I ' m not a guy , but if I were a guy , I would be the king kind of thing . So , I milled that around for a long time , and then I finally decided that it would be “ Queen of Me ,” and that was really more because I kept reading things for some reason at that time , Shania ’ s the queen of this , queen of that . Whatever . And I thought , well , I would never say that about myself , but I would say that I ' m the queen of myself . So , I thought , OK , well , that I can sing , and then the song built from there .
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