by Shania Twain
I came across a songwriter who seemed to share my feelings about writing when inspiration struck as opposed to punching a time clock. He’d enjoyed some success placing a few of his compositions with country artists, and with a decent publishing deal, too, and I thought it was cool of him to agree to work with a newcomer like me. For privacy’s sake, let’s refer to him as Dick. (I really did choose that name arbitrarily just now. Honest.)
The two of us had been working on songs together all day at his home outside of Nashville. Since it was very late and a long drive for me, we’d agreed that I would stay over. His wife had already gone to bed. I went off to my room and wasn’t long under the sheets when Dick came creeping in. Bending down over me, he whispered, “Are you awake? Can I join you?” I guess he thought he’d just hop right on in and help himself. My reaction was sharp and abrupt. I reprimanded him as you would a pesky child, asking him what the hell he thought he was doing. I let him know that, firstly, I was surprised by his indecent proposal and, secondly, I was soooo not interested.
I wondered what in the world gave Dick the idea that I was attracted to him, but then I felt a dirty chill come over me when it dawned on me: that was just it, he didn’t actually care if I was attracted to him or not. He saw me as a struggling singer-songwriter, far from home, new in town, vulnerable—and therefore available. I guessed his thinking was that if I gave him what he wanted, I’d fall for the trap of believing that he’d help me out professionally somehow in return. Yeah, right! I was so disgusted and discouraged about human nature at that moment. Weary, too. It seemed like a woman performer just could not avoid these humiliating encounters. Dick acted resentful and cold to me the next morning. I have never seen him since. Gross!
In those first few years of my adult career, I began to recognize a trend that I hadn’t experienced as a child artist. The suggestion that a young, attractive girl gets to the top only by sleeping her way there was becoming annoyingly recurrent. Jealous women who create rumors that you’ve slept your way up and disrespectful men who attempt to make reality of it. I was quickly becoming fed up with this childish, spiteful attitude, but just as quickly, I had to learn to let it roll off my back and not allow such negative distractions to affect me too personally.
Another sweaty-palms experience involved an older gentleman who, again for privacy reasons, we will call Henry. He was handsome, popular, and very well respected in the entire country music industry. Henry spoke softly in a soothing Southern drawl that exuded kindliness. I liked Henry. He was polite and fun, and he invited me to events and social gatherings as a way to help me get settled in the area. While enthusiastic about my talent, he advised me strongly to keep a tighter lid on my dissatisfaction. I appreciated his support and friendship.
One night Henry invited me to a party at his home. As with the previous events he’d asked me to attend, I expected it to be full of people from the music industry. However, I arrived to find only a few people there, and they would soon be leaving.
What is this? I thought to myself with great suspicion. What am I doing here and why? I’d never seen the other guests that were about to depart, and I got the feeling that they had been given some kind of signal to scram. They were a bit tipsy, and Henry was topsy-turvy. Before long, the two of us were left alone in this great, big house, which made me feel very small and vulnerable. But having had ample experience around drunken men in bars as well as fending off unwanted advances, I acted cool and didn’t panic—yet.
Before I got out the words “Well, I think it’s time for me to go, too,” Henry was all over me. “Don’t leave,” he pleaded, slurring his words. “Why don’t we go to my bedroom?”
“Henry,” I said sternly, “I think you need to go to bed. You’re drunk.” He was staggering, and I think that even he was aware that he wasn’t fit for much else other than crashing. Like a little boy who had been caught staying up past his bedtime, he agreed to go to bed. Alone. One problem: how was I going to get home? A friend had dropped me off, and there was no public transportation where Henry lived.
“Henry, is there a cab company I can call?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “I’ll drive you home.” We both had a good laugh over that, knowing that he was in no shape to get behind the wheel.
“Here.” With that, he tossed me his keys. “Take my car.” I wasn’t about to argue.
Never having been terribly interested in cars, I can’t tell you what make and model it was, but I do know that Henry was very proud of his pricey, posh wheels. It was some kind of luxury sports car, maybe a Porsche or a BMW. Whatever it was, I’d never driven anything like it in my life. I slid into the driver’s seat and I felt as if I were in the cockpit of a jet on wheels. All these buttons and knobs on the console in front of me. I didn’t know where to begin. This vehicle needed a freakin’ pilot!
It actually took me several minutes to work out how to operate this machine, with the biggest problem, other than actually starting it, being that I couldn’t figure out how to adjust the seat. May I note that Henry was a very tall man, and I was simply too short to reach the accelerator.
I had a moment of near tears trying to maneuver my escape vessel. I felt like a useless, silly girl running to save her decency, trying to salvage her self-respect by scraping out of a compromising situation with some dignity still intact, and I couldn’t even adjust the seat of the hunk of metal testosterone I was counting on to save me? How could I drive my dad’s big, blue school bus on a bush road, a swamp buggy through a marsh, and pilot tin can vehicles of all shapes and sizes in winter with no four-wheel drive and not be able to drive this car that was so sophisticated that it gave the impression it could drive itself?
While I angrily pressed this button and yanked on that lever, I could swear that the fancy-pants car was taunting me: “Go home, small-town girl. Back to the simple existence you were born to. You’re in over your head and way out of your league here.” Maybe it was right. Maybe this world was over my head. At that moment, I might have considered giving up and going back home, except that I had no home to go back to. It was forward or failure. Whenever I hear the song “Good-bye Yellow Brick Road” by Elton John, cowritten with Bernie Taupin, I get emotional, as it reminds me of this time in my life when the society I was trying to make it in wasn’t really me. The male dominance, the trophy value of a pretty woman on the arm of a powerful man, the dangling carrots, and integrity at stake every step of the way. Maybe it was time I woke up and realized that I wasn’t made for the music business. It was tiring trying to keep it all together and not become so overwhelmed that I wanted to just give up and go back to what was familiar, the small mining town. As Elton sang so poignantly, “I should have stayed on the farm.” This was so how I felt, only in my case, I should have stayed in the bush.
The truth is, I was as mad at myself for being in the situation in the first place. I’d let this guy set me up. How could I not have seen it coming? And how could I have let myself trust this man as a friend and not see his true intentions? “You should have known better,” I scolded myself. “This is the music business, after all. This was a classic case of the casting couch, and you walked right into it.”
Finally, I managed to tame the beasty bastard of a car well enough to make my way home. Although I wasn’t able to move the seat all the way forward, at least my toes now just touched the accelerator and brake pedals. When I finally pulled into the parking lot at my apartment complex and got out of the car, I was right pissed off and ready to give it a good kick. Instead I just cursed at it a few times, figuring, why leave a dent or a scratch? Part of me was proud that I hadn’t banged it up on the way home.
The next morning, I avoided having to speak to Henry directly by deliberately calling early and leaving a message on his answering machine, telling him where his car was (in case, in his drunken fog, he had forgotten all about it) and that the keys were under the sun visor. Henry was directly involved in the music community that surrounded me, s
o we crossed paths often after that, but he was never quite the same toward me. I later heard rumors that we’d had an affair, and although I resented it and wanted to smack him in the face for allowing this to be whispered around town, I didn’t know if he was personally responsible for circulating them, so I let the matter drop. Hey, if Henry wanted people to think that he got lucky with the young Canadian newcomer, good for him. By now I have some experience with this kind of crap and am able to just shake it off, although I still find it upsetting.
I carried on with my chin held high and focused on my music. Never did I sleep with any man just to further my career, which in the entertainment world can be risky. Certainly there are powerful men who, if a woman does not play along, will go out of their way to make her pay professionally. But I was confident enough in myself to believe that I could succeed without compromising my body or my integrity.
17
New Country, New Name
My debut album was slated for release in April 1992. I felt that it was a pretty average record, to be truthful, but PolyGram was gearing up for the launch enthusiastically. Typically, a label, having invested in an artist, will support at least the first single with a promotional push. This means investing in photos and a music video, and arranging a string of radio and television appearances and magazine coverage. If the record is successful, you will probably get a shot at a second single, a third, and so on until that CD has run its course with public demand and radio interest. Then, if all goes well, the company will bankroll a second CD. My deal called for delivering eight albums, so I felt fairly secure, even though artists contracted for multiple albums have been known to be dropped unceremoniously if their previous public offering meets with indifference.
The CD was to be titled simply Shania Twain.
That I agreed to the record company’s request for me to change my name should be sufficient evidence of my level of cooperation. To be honest, I had more qualms about the caliber of material being sent my way than I did about adopting a professional name. After all, even Mark Twain himself was born Samuel Clemens. The thought of picking out a stage name actually struck me as kind of fun. But I made it clear to everyone that under no circumstances would I change my last name, out of respect and loyalty to my father. He had sacrificed to raise me, putting gas in the car so that I could get to gigs when the money really should have gone toward groceries or paying the heating bill. To abandon our family surname would have made me feel like a traitor. But even I had to admit that Eilleen and Twain didn’t make for a dynamic combination for a performer. My first name was too soft sounding. Great stage names often have hard consonants in them, something catchy like Dolly Parton or Nat “King” Cole. Alliteration also works well: Loretta Lynn (her married name) has a melodious quality to it and seems to roll right off the tongue. Or it is just unique, like Elvis Presley. That was a one-of-a-kind name.
What, then, to pair with Twain? I tried a long list of combinations. Then I remembered a wardrobe mistress I’d met at Deerhurst Resort shortly before I left there. She was about my age and, like me, had been raised in a biracial family, only her mother was Native American, and her father was white. The first time she introduced herself as Shania, I had to ask her to repeat herself. I had never heard such a beautiful, unique, and exotic name, which, unbeknown to me at the time, means “on my way.” I just knew that the name had such a hopeful ring to it. I started rolling Shania around on my tongue, then Shania … Twain. Yes. Yes! They seemed to fit together perfectly. I ran it by executives at the record company, they liked it, and it stuck.
As the release date drew near, I was sent to media training. In addition to toning down my Canadian accent, I had to learn when to put the brakes on my naturally impulsive sense of humor and my tendency to express myself freely and, um, colorfully. Wouldn’t want to unnecessarily offend anyone in, say, an interview for a newspaper or on radio and TV with political incorrectness or things that would have been considered derogatory in some areas of the States I wouldn’t have thought twice about maybe saying “For Christ’s sake” if being spontaneously expressive or maybe “No shit!” if caught by surprise by what was being said. With my unrefined Northern upbringing, four-letter words certainly made up a sizable portion of my vocabulary, and I was not raised in a religious environment, so I didn’t understand the sensitivity to using words that would be considered offensive to some. I was ignorant in that sense, and an expression like “Jesus effin’ Christ” (used regularly by my father) is common where we’re from. I mean, when you stub your toe, there is nothing quite as satisfying as a good old guttural curse word. That was not acceptable in my new environment, however, if I wanted to be respected and taken seriously, so the bushwhacker language had to go. Also, being naturally hyper and energetic, which on TV can look like someone in the control room accidentally sped up the videotape, I needed to speak slower and be less animated. It’s not a matter of muzzling yourself, but sometimes comments that seem perfectly innocuous, or hilarious, when you’re horsing around on the tour bus with people you know—and, just as important, who know you—just come out all wrong when you read them the next day in print or when you see yourself on television.
It’s as though the in-person lens and the television lens can give off a different tone even when they show the same image. Have you ever listened to your voice on a phone message you left someone? You might find yourself unrecognizable or at least weird sounding. We have different ways of acting and sounding when we’re being recorded or on the phone. I’ve even heard the term “the phone voice,” for example. If you overhear someone speaking, you can pretty much tell if she is speaking to someone in person or over the phone, just by the tone of her voice.
PolyGram’s Nashville office oversaw the label’s country acts exclusively. Now, I had always considered myself a versatile singer and songwriter, and not tied to any one style of music. But, as with popular art in general, the recording industry needed to decide in which display case to put me in order for the marketing machine to work. The reality is that categorization exists in every aspect of the music business: a country artist’s records will receive airplay on radio stations with a country music format, obviously, and not on stations that cater to fans of rap or so-called classic rock. Likewise, in which section of the record store will your CD be filed? And while there are general-interest publications and radio and TV programs that will cover anyone who’s creating a buzz, you have others that are more narrowly focused and are interested only in artists belonging to a specific genre.
Without a doubt, my musical roots sprang from country music. Growing up, I related to musicians such as Dolly Parton, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Johnny Cash. I still love their music. However, years of playing bars and nightclubs force you to juggle a variety of styles, which is a good thing for anyone’s musical development. I thought of myself as a crossover artist in the mold of Elvis, Glen Campbell, Olivia Newton-John, and John Denver. They touched on multiple styles and did not restrict themselves to just one genre. They were in an elite group of artists capable of something called crossing over.
I developed my joy of singing from listening to a wide range of vocalists, some of whom did not necessarily leave a detectable imprint on my own approach to personal style and development of self-taught techniques. For instance, Stevie Wonder. He slides around notes with such ease. As a vocal exercise, I used to play his records and study every bend and nuance to help me develop more agility. His timing and pitch were so technically correct, yet he sang with enough soul to keep me musically high for life. Singing along with him was an intense vocal exercise. Gladys Knight is another voice I couldn’t get enough of, as it touched me somewhere deeper than I could ever reach with my own voice. For me, Stevie and Gladys represent the epitome of vocal soul.
During my teenage years, every day there was something new to blow me away: Michael Jackson, Supertramp, Van Halen, Def Leppard, Whitney Houston, the Police. Different genres, to be sure, but each had a
unique effect on me musically.
By the time I signed with PolyGram, it had been many years since I’d sung or listened to country music, and the whole scene had changed drastically. I wasn’t familiar with any contemporary country singers—not even Reba McEntire! If you had asked me to name the newest female country artist, I’d have said Tanya Tucker, and she recorded her first record in 1972. I was obviously out of touch with what was happening in current country, but here I was signed to the country music department of PolyGram. I tried to convince Harold Shedd that I’d be best marketed as more of a pop artist, which would allow me to explore a more eclectic mix of styles. I made the same case to the people in the label’s A&R department. A&R stands for artists and repertoire; it’s the division of a record company responsible for scouting talent, overseeing the artistic development of the artists it signs, and acting as a sort of liaison between artists and the business side of the label. However, the powers that be insisted on keeping me firmly in the country genre for my debut.
I knew I’d better get up to snuff on things. I started watching CMT as much as possible, and it was a fantastic platform for seeing, hearing, and knowing all you needed to know about the “new country” that was monopolizing the country charts. It didn’t exactly take me back to my roots: what I would consider true country. Occasionally the video channel reunited me with some familiar faces from my childhood who were still around and managing airtime, like the odd George Jones single, but for the most part, it was all new artists. Personally, I preferred the old country I’d grown up with, as I felt it had more depth and sincerity than the new batch.
