Shania Twain Co Uk - The UK Shania Site

So much of my own original material is on this album. That it's just more me, y'know. My attitude is just in the lyrics, vocally it's very intimate, its very much the way i would sing, just around the house, y'know. Alot of that as to do with Mutt, my husband and producer. Because of course he hears my voice in those moments, when I'm in the tub and when I'm in the kitchen cooking. And stuff like that. And so, he hears the things in my voice that he wants to hear. And remembers and reminds me to do when we're in the studio.

He coaches me. I need that in a producer. I like that he's a great mirror for me. And he will sit in the studio and I'll be doing my vocals and he'll say y'know, he'll just coach me through it. And he will say, y'know, he's a great singer himself, so he will give me examples of how i did that melody when i was cooking, y'know, because what happens is, we write this stuff, we dont have like, writing sessions, y'know, it's very casual. We'll be in the car going to do grocerys and we'll be writing a song together. We've got about fifty guitars all over the house. Y'know, one in the bathroom, one in the living room, one in the bedroom, one in the kitchen, we've got them all over the place. I'm telling you, sometimes.. I'm stepping on guitars. It's kinda like when you've got kids and you've got toys all over the place... and you get sick and tired of stepping on toys. Well, i stepped on a guitar the other day and i said "okay, thats enough!" "we have to start putting these away." But it's like you just pick it up wherever you are, whatever your doing and you just start playing something. And then Mutt might hear me in the other room and he'll start singing. Alot of times he'll be playing and I'll be somewhere else in the house and I'll hear him and I'll start getting a melody in my head. It's just a really cool thing that we can write that casually because we live together. And we know each other so well. So we always pick up on alot of little things. On the candid moments, y'know, I will even run in there and go, "no,no,no..go back and do it the way you were doing it", he wont even know I was listening.

Go back to the D or take the melody here or wait i think I've got the perfect lyric for that. Y'know. And so, alot of our writing is not scheduled and it's not erm neccessarily organised. So when we go into the studio ..mm..i think we take alot of that with us first of all. Which makes a big difference. We can take that casual mm.. frame of mind, with us when we go into the studio. And he'll say.."no,no,no..this is how you were doing it before". Because I'll forget, I'll do it differently for some reason. I'll be in a different frame of mind, I'll be in a performance frame of mind and he'll just remind me of how i did it, was doing before and all that kind of stuff. And which tone to go for, and all that kind of thing. When your more relaxed you sing a little differently.

TALKING ABOUT HOW SHE AND MUTT GOT TOGETHER

We met over the phone, originally. A friend of his erm..started seeing my video on CMT Europe and Mutt always has, y'know, when he was living in England, always had CMT on in the studio. And he would just be mixing Bryan Adams album and watching CMT at the same time (giggles) y'know, he'd have mute on the TV and he would just watch. And Mutt was collecting country albums, and he likes to keep up with the new country stuff all the time aswell, because he's such a big country music fan. And so his friend, a friend of his in Nashville actually, managed to get him a CD over there in England. And he started working out to it every morning. And became a fan of my voice and wanted to know if I was a songwriter, and got hold of my manager and we hooked up. And y'know, we started writing songs over the phone. And we spent a few weeks over the phone just talking back and forth. I didnt know who he was, I didnt know mm.. that he was this big famous producer and that he had written all these mega hits. I wasnt aware of who he was, I just didnt know the name, I didnt know the name Mutt Lange. So it was really nice to be able to be exchanging and getting to know each other, and to be that compatible creatively, without even knowing who he was. It was really nice, it was nice for both of us. And when i started talking to him over the phone he played me a Michael Bolton track that he was working on - 'I said i loved you but i lied'. Which was a big song for Michael. But Michaels voice wasnt on it yet. Michael hadnt done the vocal. And so, i was just listening to this wonderful track and y'know, 'cos he said, mm.. here, let me let you, let me play you what I'm working on right now. He must have thought the whole time i knew who he was y'know. I knew he was a songwriter and all that.

So i listened to it and i thought, "wow! this guys really good!" (laughs) Wow, i thought it was so great, i said, oh i can definitly write with this guy. oh okay, me and half the world! So er..he mm..i said wow, thats really beautiful, so he says, what about you? What have you been writing lately? What have you been working on? So i sang the chorus from Home aint where his heart is (anymore), which is the first track off this album. And he just, he loved it. And he thought thought the same thing y'know, he thought wow, i really like, thats beautiful. I think that in his own mind he's thinking i really wanna get together with this person and write. So that's when we decided to meet at fan fair in June 93.