SHANIA TWAIN: How to Be Proud of Yourself | GREAT MOMENTS

This week, I wanted to revisit my conversation with one of the true queens of country music - THE Shania Twain. Having Shania on the show was such a special moment. Her story is so inspirational, and in this Great Moment, she opens up about how writing music became her escape through some of the hardest times of her life. She also tells me why she loves Dolly Parton, and why learning to be proud of yourself can be one of the most powerful things you can do. Listen to the full episode HERE https://open.spotify.com/episode/7zouJmVhBUpzoDbqHNZCEy?si=f7fb169dbd764022! If you enjoyed the show, you can also follow us: Instagram-@greatcompanypodcast https://www.instagram.com/greatcompanypodcast/# TikTok -@greatcompanypodcast https://open.acast.com/networks/611e511b4ec6dc00134bced2/shows/65d737dfdc02e00016c413b2/episodes/www.tiktok.com/@greatcompanypodcast And if you've got thoughts, questions and comments, you can email us at: [email protected] THE CREDITS Producer: Helen Burke Assistant Producer: Issy Weeks-Hankins Video: Josh Bennett Social Media: Laura Coughlan Exec Producer: Ewan Newbigging-Lister & Jemima Rathbone Great Company is an original podcast from JamPot Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• 2:15Jamie Laing?

  Hello, everyone. I'm Jamie Laing and this is Great Moments. Hey, guys. Welcome back to Great Moments. This week, I'm really excited for this one because we have the queen of country music or one of the queens of country music, the Shania Twain. Now, I'm going to be honest, I was so excited to have her on. She has like the most incredibly inspiring story. She is amazing for so many different reasons. And in this great moment, Shania opens up about how writing music became an escape through the hard times and the importance of learning to be proud of yourself. So here it is. Great Moments with Shania Twain. Let's go, girls.

• 2:57Jamie Laing?

  What was your relationship like with your mom? Was it always good? Because I think she, from what I understand, she was the one who pushed you towards singing. She wanted you to be the country singer. You, she took you, I think you were singing at the age of eight in different places. I mean, that feels like so. And then I think you took on this role of write, well, now I want to become the singer because I want to do it to help and provide for my family. Because you sort of took on that responsibility.

• 3:24Speaker 04

  It wasn't so much to provide for my family. I would earn, you know, when I would go sing in the bar, I might get 20 bucks, 25 bucks, 50 bucks. You can't provide for a family on that. This was to like, if we were going to use the gas money to go to the bar to do my singing, then I'd have to be able to put money in back in the tank or, you know, put some money toward the groceries, something like that. So it was, I couldn't just go and do it for nothing. It was more of that, more of a compensation. We were, I mean, trust me, 50 bucks. Bought a lot of apples, for example, or a lot of bruised apples. We always went for the bruised fruit and stuff and vegetables, but, which is all fine. It's all good. Nobody died from a bruised apple.

• 4:09Speaker 04

  But the deeper message is really more, or not a message, but I don't really want people to think that I was the provider for the family. I was a peacekeeper. I was more responsible for my mother's happiness than I should have been. She lived for my music. She loved my music. She was inspired by my music. She would get out of bed to listen to me sing. She would take me to the bar, you know? My mother otherwise barely left the house. And I would do her makeup before we would go.

• 4:54Speaker 04

  I would do her hair and her makeup. And then we would go out to the bar and it was, my mother was just, you know, sort of broken. And, but at the same time, she's the woman that saw, she's the mother that saw the talent and wanted to nurture it. She just didn't know any other way of doing it. It's like, well, I just got to find stages around here. She started by putting me up on restaurant countertops to sing with the jukebox and then...

• 5:31Jamie Laing?

  And you weren't nervous to do it? You just got up and did it?

• 5:33Speaker 04

  Not at three.

• 5:35Jamie Laing?

  Yeah, true.

• 5:36Speaker 04

  You know, and the people would applaud and it was, you know, it was fun then. Then by the time I was eight and I'm singing in the bars, now it's no fun anymore.

• 5:46Jamie Laing?

  Why is it no fun at eight?

• 5:47Speaker 04

  Oh, because, you know, I'm only allowed in the bar, the liquor law, at least at the time anyway. No kids in the bar, no minors in a liquor premises until the bar is closed. Bar closes at midnight. So last call is at midnight or maybe just before midnight. And then I was allowed in, I could get up and sing. And if the band didn't want to carry on playing, then I would just get up there with my guitar and entertain everybody that was left finishing up what was on their tables. But it was smoky and stinky and by then everybody's, you know, half cut and it's nowhere a kid wants to be. And you got school the next day. So no, it wasn't fun.

• 6:32Jamie Laing?

  Wow, that image of you at midnight when everyone's drunk and...

• 6:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:37Jamie Laing?

  And you're just getting up there doing acapella or just singing if there's someone wants to help you do it. That's wild.

• 6:42Speaker 04

  Well, with my guitar.

• 6:43Jamie Laing?

  Yeah, with, of course, yeah. But you know what I mean?

• 6:45Speaker 04

  I always had that. I had my guitar. Yeah, I didn't like, I didn't like it. I didn't want to do it. And, but there's the dependency thing, see? What do you do when you're eight? And your mom, you know, is living for this. It makes her happy.

• 7:03Jamie Laing?

  But when you were performing, was that a sense of escapism? Well, could you then just suddenly escape from everything and you were just singing and you were on stage? It doesn't matter if it was a countertop or a bar top, at least that was your stage.

• 7:15Speaker 04

  Not the performing.

• 7:16Jamie Laing?

  Really?

• 7:16Speaker 04

  No. The performing was more like I was on display. The writing was the escape. So the writing was mine and I would, that was my great escape, writing. And, you know, writing, music, any stories is creative writing. You're playing with words. I was playing with an instrument, so I was writing music and lyrics. I would take my guitar for long walks. I would literally go into the bush, light a fire. We were a real bush family. We spent a lot of time out in remote areas, out in the wilderness.

• 8:01Speaker 04

  And so like, it was nothing for me to go out alone into the bush and start a fire and write music and just escape into other realities, create the stories. My imagination could go anywhere. I could write about anything, anyone, any topic, any chord progressions. And I was alone. It was for me only. My own nourishment, my own uninhibited self-expression escapism therapy.

• 8:34Jamie Laing?

  Yeah, because it's all of you and it's so personal. Because it's just you just...

• 8:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:40Jamie Laing?

  Just writing and putting it out there.

• 8:42Speaker 04

  And it's for no other reason. No one ever has to hear it.

• 8:45Jamie Laing?

  You're an amazing storyteller. You really are. And not only, we can obviously see that in your music, but in person as well. You just, you have this energy about you that I don't know...

• 8:54Speaker 04

  Are you just saying I talk too much?

• 8:55Jamie Laing?

  No, no, you don't.

• 8:56Speaker 04

  You've got this energy about you, you tell great stories.

• 8:58Jamie Laing?

  Oh, my God. I mean, I honestly, I wish I had a whole day, I wish I had 24 hours with you. I really do. Because you, you, you explain things and you, that's probably why your music relates so much to you, because you allow me sitting here to feel it, to understand exactly what you're feeling. Because you're talking your mind. Does that make sense? You're really explaining how you're feeling and what you were going through. And that's incredibly unique, I think. I think most people just go, okay, well, this is my... You really feel it and tell it and let other people feel it.

• 9:30Speaker 04

  I'm a passionate person. I don't consider myself a great storyteller as a talker. And I do definitely like to put my thinking into songs or storytelling.

• 9:44Jamie Laing?

  Favorite lyric you've ever written?

• 9:49Jamie Laing?

  Have you done one and you just gone, that's good. Cause I could name a few.

• 9:58Speaker 04

  Well, I do love to play with words. I love playing with lyrics. A lot of times, though, it's more the process of putting the song together that's to play with lyrics.

• 10:08Jamie Laing?

  Yeah.

• 10:09Speaker 04

  Uh, something like, I, I don't know. I'll give you an example of something that everyone probably knows the lyric, uh, Man, I Feel Like A Woman. So

• 10:20Speaker 04

  you might've been expecting something more, I mean, deeper, more emotional, but Man, I Feel Like A Woman is a statement

• 10:28Speaker 04

  that

• 10:31Speaker 04

  tells so much in those few words.

• 10:38Speaker 04

  And I could write a book on what is behind that song. So the skill of the songwriting.

• 10:48Jamie Laing?

  Hmm.

• 10:50Speaker 04

  Not that it disguises those little, uh, you know, those few words, that short phrase, but there is so much more behind it. I mean, there's a lot of great classic even hits out there that really don't say much of anything. Some of them are just

• 11:09Speaker 04

  la la la songs, right? And that's fine. But when you talk about an actual writer, a lyricist, um, Man, I Feel Like A Woman is talking all about, uh, or not, not that it's talking about, but I'm expressing so many things. Yeah. And, um,

• 11:29Speaker 04

  so the joy in that is, is really, really, really great. So I don't know, I would say that was my favorite one, but it meant a lot.

• 11:36Jamie Laing?

  When you wrote that, well, you, you must've been like, this feels, this is strong. Cause it's, it's such a iconic, strong. I mean, it doesn't really matter who you are. You kind of know that line. It's amazing.

• 11:50Speaker 04

  Well,

• 11:55Speaker 04

  it's Paul McCartney said, that said, didn't he say that, was it Let It Be or one of, one of the great

• 12:01Speaker 04

  Beatles songs, um, that it was scrambled eggs at, at, at one time.

• 12:05Jamie Laing?

  That's very true.

• 12:06Speaker 04

  So it starts, you know, not all my songs start that way, but a lot of them do start with superish, just more about, it's more about the phrasing and the cadence. Um, of the way you're, you play with the, with the, the actual phrasing of, of, uh, of the wording. Um, so Man, I Feel Like A Woman, I was searching for

• 12:29Speaker 04

  that phrasing.

• 12:30Jamie Laing?

  Yeah.

• 12:33Speaker 04

  But not deliberately thinking, I want to write a statement about feeling good in my own skin as a woman.

• 12:39Jamie Laing?

  Hmm.

• 12:40Speaker 04

  Um, the song ended up being that. Um, but the Man, I Feel Like A Woman was just a statement. It was almost like, I had a realization, this song. I know exactly what I'm going to say in this song. I'm ready.

• 12:55Jamie Laing?

  You just, you could feel it.

• 12:56Speaker 04

  A light bulb went on. I'm like, oh yeah. Okay. I'm just going to let all this out right now. This is going to be fabulous. So it's very satisfying. It was, so I didn't know it was going to be a hit or that it would mean something fabulous to anyone else.

• 13:10Jamie Laing?

  Yeah.

• 13:10Speaker 04

  Songwriting is solving puzzles.

• 13:12Jamie Laing?

  That's totally what it is, I imagine, right? Because you're making your, you've got a jigsaw and you're putting it together. And then when you suddenly complete it, you go, here we go.

• 13:21Speaker 04

  But even more difficult than a jigsaw, you don't know what the, what you're actually putting together yet. You don't even know, you know, when you have a jigsaw, it comes in a box with a photo on it.

• 13:30Jamie Laing?

  Yeah. So you know what you're doing.

• 13:31Speaker 04

  It's like, okay, that, okay. I know that there's a tree up here and there's a, you know, the sun is here somewhere in the middle. Um,

• 13:37Jamie Laing?

  You're just guessing.

• 13:39Speaker 04

  Well, you're creating.

• 13:41Jamie Laing?

  Yeah.

• 13:42Speaker 04

  You're creating it as you go along.

• 13:44Jamie Laing?

  I heard that Dolly Parton was one of the people that really inspired you. And what's incredible is that she, um, had did the legend slot at Glastonbury.

• 13:57Jamie Laing?

  And hello, Shania Twain, also at Glastonbury in the legend spot.

• 14:02Speaker 04

  Tell me about it.

• 14:03Jamie Laing?

  Unbelievable.

• 14:04Speaker 04

  Right. It makes it.

• 14:05Jamie Laing?

  Here we go.

• 14:07Speaker 04

  The fact that Dolly did that slot makes it a very surreal.

• 14:14Jamie Laing?

  Why? Tell me why that is.

• 14:16Speaker 04

  Because she's one of my absolute heroes. So

• 14:23Speaker 04

  it's puts a stamp on things for me. It's difficult to get perspective in a career at times when your career is at times extremely busy. You don't always have time to reflect on everything that's happening. Um, you don't have time to absorb even, you know, some of the great accolades.

• 14:45Speaker 04

  But when it's so obvious, like Dolly Parton's done that.

• 14:51Jamie Laing?

  Hmm.

• 14:52Speaker 04

  And now you're going to do it. It's, it's a stamp. It's a stamp of approval. It's a stamp of, um, you know, achievement.

• 15:01Jamie Laing?

  Are you trying to say you're proud of yourself?

• 15:03Speaker 04

  I am.

• 15:03Jamie Laing?

  There we go. There we go.

• 15:05Speaker 04

  I'm very proud of myself.

• 15:06Jamie Laing?

  And you should be. It's unbelievable.

• 15:09Speaker 04

  But I think if you get to that, if you're doing something that Dolly did at, at this level, you've achieved something amazing. You know?

• 15:16Jamie Laing?

  Yeah, but Shania, I think you've already achieved, I mean.

• 15:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, but there's some things that are just, you know, Glastonbury's,

• 15:25Speaker 04

  it's an event. Uh, and the more I hear about it and talk about it, uh, the more I realize.

• 15:31Jamie Laing?

  It's a religion.

• 15:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's a religion. And a lot of people say that. And it's also a commitment.

• 15:35Jamie Laing?

  Yeah.

• 15:36Speaker 04

  It's a cultural commitment to an event. Not to necessarily specific artists. So it's as if the event has developed or the, the, the, the, the culture has developed these slots that we get invited to. It's, it's the, it's very, very surreal. So, you know, like Dolly Parton was at the head of the table and now I'm going to be on the head of the table. You know, that's

• 16:06Jamie Laing?

  It feels like a great, it feels like an amazing moment, right?

• 16:09Speaker 04

  It's very, very special.

• 16:11Jamie Laing?

  Are you, are you generally proud of yourself now and realize, do you sometimes think, because you spoke about it, it's like, it's like ships in the night sometimes when you're just achieving, achieving, achieving, doing arenas, going around, selling albums. You know, 10 million, 20 million, whatever it is, you keep going. When does that point happen where you suddenly go, hey, I've done all right here?

• 16:32Speaker 04

  I, I wasn't doing enough of that when I was younger in my career because I was just too busy. I wasn't, I wasn't absorbing it. I wasn't appreciating. So I didn't get to appreciate it. I wasn't patting myself on the back.

• 16:45Jamie Laing?

  Hmm.

• 16:46Speaker 04

  I was like looking, busy looking forward, writing more songs. Um, and

• 16:53Speaker 04

  uh, didn't get to reflect and enjoy the moment in the moment, a lot of the times. I'm doing that now. I'm catching up with all of that now. So now I'm like, oh my God, how, how fabulous is that? Isn't that great? Um, and I'm having fun with that. And there's a sense of humor that comes with that as well, because really if I'm proud of anything at all. And when you, if you're talking about pride and achievements, it's

• 17:21Speaker 04

  it's the, it's more about the, uh, courage that I've mustered at times to, um, you know, to deal with the stage fright, to, uh, you know, take the plunge with the operation, to take that risk. Uh, moving on after divorce, which was my music partner for so many years. That was a whole stepping out in itself. There's been a lot of jumping off cliffs. And, uh, I, I'm proud that I've,

• 17:57Speaker 04

  if I'm proud of anything, I think that those are the things that brought me the achievements.

• 18:01Jamie Laing?

  I love that. You're, you have jumped off a lot of cliffs. You have, you've just done it. You've gone for it.

• 18:05Speaker 04

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