From This Moment On

by Shania Twain

  Mutt, a very humble person, never name-dropped the many multimillion-selling artists for whom he’d cowritten many of the songs and produced (AC/DC, Boomtown Rats, the Cars, Def Leppard, Foreigner, among many others) or mentioned the hit songs he’d cowritten—including Huey Lewis and the News’s “Do You Believe in Love,” much of Def Leppard’s 1980s output, and the Grammy Award–winning “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You,” which he cowrote with and produced for Bryan Adams. I never had an inkling that he was a big-time producer with millions and millions sold. The album Hysteria by Def Leppard alone moved twenty million copies worldwide.

  My interest in him musically developed over many weeks of these transcontinental phone calls. By the time I finally discovered Mutt’s iconic status in the music industry, we had already bonded on our own terms without the influence of too much information. The foundation of our early relationship was based simply on my wanting to hear more of what he was working on and his wanting to hear more of what I was working on.

  The first time we met was in June at the 1993 CMA Music Festival/Fan Fair, an annual four-day event that the Country Music Association had been putting on since 1972. It’s like an all-you-can-eat buffet for devotees of country music. Performers, ranging from the most famous names to relative unknowns, play concerts, sign autographs, and, in general, rub shoulders with the most enthusiastic fans you’ll meet, more than 130,000 of them, on average.

  I was scheduled to make my Fan Fair debut on the main stage; I believe it was Tim McGraw’s first appearance there, too. Mutt was going to be at the Tennessee State Fairground to see Randy Travis perform, his favorite of the country artists of that period.

  We had agreed to meet backstage after my performance, and I was so excited to finally see him face-to-face. I was also nervous to know that he was watching me onstage, as I wanted to live up to whatever his expectations were of me as a singer. Obviously Mutt knew what I looked like; I was still expecting that tall, pudgy, balding dude with the ponytail. As soon as I walked around the back of the stage, Mutt approached me and introduced himself. We hugged like two long-lost friends, and out rang that familiar voice I had been speaking to for so many weeks. But aside from being tall, nothing about Mutt’s appearance fit my image of him. He had curly blond, shoulder-length hair, light blue eyes, and a slender, fit physique. He was older than me but looked younger than his voice suggested. I was surprised that he looked so different from what I was expecting. He was even warmer and more approachable in person. I loved Mutt Lange at first sight. Not that I was in love with him, but I loved him with a familiarity I could not explain. We had a connection that I didn’t understand and didn’t question. It was natural and easy. Not romantic; not yet. It was a love that felt innocent and comfortable, just the way it was. I had not looked ahead or anticipated a deeper relationship with him at that point.

  I was excited at the thought of seeing him again and creatively charged to be writing music with someone so musically incredible.

  The next month I flew to London to meet with him, loaded with a long list of song ideas, titles, and melodies I’d been banking since Deerhurst, including those rejected by the record company for my first record. We stayed overnight in a little area on the outskirts of London called Hind Head, where Mutt lived in a charming country-style cottage that sat at the bottom of a small valley with patches of ivy and spotted moss cloaking the exterior walls. It was very picturesque, this cozy home of Mutt’s, I thought. On the inside, it was always very tidy and particularly quiet. He had stunning gardens that he’d designed himself and also planted much of with his own two hands. I related very well to his own approach of rolling up his sleeves and digging in, so to speak, when something needed to be done. The rooms in his house, with windows looking out on the gardens and framing them like masterpiece paintings, stopped me in my tracks as I took in the glorious views of fountains and pristine, carpetlike lawns framed in by flower beds of tremendous contrasting color and texture. Mutt was a gifted garden designer.

  The next day we flew to his house in Spain, where he felt the change of scenery would be more creatively inspiring. I was already awed by Hind Head, but as he lived there, I could see his point, so off we went to his hillside retreat overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. It was a two-story house embedded in the side of a rock face, with a sun-and-sea holiday feel to it, creating a relaxed vibe, perfect for artistic inspiration. It wasn’t an extravagant house, but I could tell Mutt had been thoughtful about the décor. I appreciated his sense of style and attention to aesthetic detail. Like in the Hind Head house outside of London, it was clear I was in the home of someone particular about his surroundings and sensitive to quality and personal taste. Mutt and I made great progress in the two weeks I was there, combining our collective writing. It was a concentrated time of all writing. We stopped for meal breaks but stayed focused on making the most of each day writing songs. I enjoyed this time indulging in being creative with no interruption. It was almost like a songwriting vacation. All I was required to do was sit around thinking of musical ideas. It was fantastic! It was reminiscent of the period when all my friends were at university and college all day studying, while I stayed back in the apartment working on music. Only this time, I had a partner, someone who was doing the same thing I was: living and breathing music intensely for an extended period of time until he came up with something satisfying.

  There was never anyone around except for the two of us and the cleaning lady, who came with a whispered presence off and on throughout the weekdays. I remember very clearly feeling uncomfortable with her doing my laundry. I wasn’t used to people doing domestic chores for me and felt guilty when she took it upon herself to add it to her other cleaning chores. I was more accustomed to rolling up my own sleeves to either do it myself or at the very least pitch in. I asked her how to use the machines and insisted on doing it myself. This was very odd behavior to her, I could tell, but she smiled and obliged. I felt awkwardly spoiled letting someone else clean my dirty clothes. Such luxury was for the likes of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, not for Eilleen from Timmins, Ontario.

  Too soon for me, my songwriting holiday was over and I had to fly back to Nashville, pack my bags, and hit the road again to carry on promoting Shania Twain. The second I walked into my Brentwood apartment, I called Mutt and told him that I missed him already. I didn’t feel coy about saying it, as I missed him in the way that you would miss a family member or close friend. At this stage of our relationship, Mutt never indicated that he was interested in anything other than creating songs together. He was a gentleman and never made me feel uneasy in any way.

  I made a second songwriting trip to Mutt about a month later and the songs between us were really taking shape. But it was our third round of writing sessions that would change the course of my personal life forever.

  I could sense that being with Mutt was awakening something else inside me other than friendship. My impression was that Mutt was a humble and sincere person, interested in music more deeply than anything else, but he began to reveal a sincere interest in me personally, which I was also feeling mutually. Mutt didn’t concern himself with what I knew about “who” he was and what he’d accomplished. I appreciated this quality in him. Instead, we spoke about our music and our childhoods, and entertained each other with endless conversation about life overall. We were getting to know each other as people in this week and discovering that we wanted to spend more time together. We wanted to be closer. By the end of our Majorca writing session, I knew my life was changing before my eyes and by the second. Just being around Mutt gave me energy, and we had so much to talk about.

  Although this time brought us to admit a personal affection toward each other, I wasn’t certain what my feelings meant, and in this confusion, I tried to control my burgeoning feelings for him. Life would just carry on as before. I would go home to Paul, his family, and our little cabin by the river and ignore that something within me was somehow different. I wanted to sit
around the campfire and sing my new songs, deny the realization that the person I’d spent the last six years in a relationship with was not the one I would build my future with. I was afraid to let go, as letting go of my relationship with Paul felt as though I would be letting go of stability itself. I was unsettled by the thought of leaving his companionship, his caring family, and the comfortable familiarity we’d developed between us over the years. We had a special bond that was painful to imagine living without. Paul made me feel safe and loved, but I could not hold on to something for the sake of feeling safe. I had to be honest with him and myself that I was not committed to marrying him, and holding on would be wrong. I knew I had to let go of one to have the other, and not when it necessarily suited me. My relationship with Paul had been too meaningful to abuse, so I left the security I had with him, his family, and our friends more abruptly than I was emotionally prepared for, and it felt as if I were flying from the nest and about to enter a whole new, scary world.

  It was as though I’d come to the end of a volume in my life. Timmins, my family, Paul, Canada—none of it was coming with me. After saying good-bye to Paul, he went to our little cabin on the bank of the Kenogamissi Lake to be with his family; and I to my manager Mary’s house in Kirkland Lake, two hours south. Emotionally drained, I pulled up to her and her husband Bob’s log cabin, which they’d built themselves between a wide river and a white birch forest. I don’t remember much about this brief interlude of mourning, as I was in a fog the whole time, but I do recall sitting on her basement sofa sobbing for three days straight and going through boxes of tissues.

  I was gutted that Paul and I were over, even though I’d realized that he wasn’t the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. After crying every tear I had, I left Mary’s to head back to my new world of Mutt and music in Nashville.

  19

  The Woman in Me, Married

  “Shania, when are you coming back to Nashville? It’s time to get your butt in the studio!” This was Luke Lewis, wondering where in the hell I’d been during the recent promotional tour breaks. The Shania Twain CD was petering out, and it was time for me to start on the next record and get it released while there was still an awareness that there had ever even been a Shania Twain, recording artist. Ironically, the first step was to go through the process of shopping for the songs. Of course, Luke had no idea at this stage that the entire song list for what would be my next CD was almost already completely written. With the few trips back and forth to Europe, writing these songs with Mutt, and the trip to Canada to say good-bye to Paul, I’d scarcely been in Nashville over the past few months, so I understood Luke’s pressure for me to shit or get off the pot. They weren’t giving recording opportunities away, after all, let alone second chances. I was grateful to him for another shot after the feeble sales of Shania Twain. Frigg, I was thankful just to have been kept on the roster; not all PolyGram’s country artists survived the managerial musical chairs of the past several months.

  Mutt and I agreed that label executives would likely be leery to learn that I was collaborating on songs with an Englishman by way of South Africa who also happened to be that AC/DC–Def Leppard guy. They might think I’d gone rock. You could just imagine them worrying that I’d be grinding my Spandex-clad body in front of skyscrapers of amplifiers while flashing the devil’s-horns sign, or whatever it is, at the audience. So we kept the news from Luke for the meantime.

  Without going into detail, I did my best to reassure Luke that I was not just goofing off sightseeing in Majorca. “I’m working really hard,” I told him. “I just need a little more time before I share it with you.” I’m not sure I was all that convincing, as I sensed some skepticism from the other end of the transatlantic call. But as I was being vague in my attempt to avoid lying, I probably gave the impression that I was being unappreciative.

  “I promise I’ll come back next week and let you have a listen, okay?” Before Luke could press me for more details, I feigned not being able to hear him due to the poor connection (well, that part was true; the line was a bit static-y) and quickly got off the phone.

  Believe me, I would have loved to have played Luke some samples right then and there, because I knew these songs were magical, even in their raw state: just the two of us playing acoustic guitars and me singing with Mutt joining with harmony and vocal counterparts. Mutt and I were rockin’. I was feeling charged creatively and having the musical time of my life. Especially after the less than fulfilling experience of feeling like a ghost during the recording of my first album. In contrast, Mutt expressed that he appreciated the way my mind worked as a songwriter and genuinely loved the sound of my voice, commenting that the tone reminded him of Karen Carpenter at times. Whoa, that was a huge compliment to me, as I considered her style so exquisite. Mutt had sensitive ears, and it’s not surprising that her sound was a noticeable influence on my own style. Even with his track record of success and my lack of one, he respected me as a fellow artist and treated me as an equal.

  His confidence in me encouraged me to push my own boundaries. He pushed me, too, challenging me again and again to strengthen melodies and tweak lyrics. “Good enough” did not exist in his vocabulary, and rightfully so. It wasn’t good enough unless it was a hit. But when a song hit the mark, he’d say, “That’s it, you got it, Woody.” (The nickname, dating back to when we first met, is a joking reference to the fringe-cut bangs I wore at the time, à la Woody Woodpecker.)

  There was no time to waste on ideas that wouldn’t make the album, but something like “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” was just there. I was inspired right off the bat with that one, for example, by a riff Mutt had going, and the lyrics and phrasing just came out of the blue. Mutt gave that one a thumbs-up, no questions asked. He could recognize a hit idea when he heard one. His groove flowed easily, and that song came together between the two of us, without any push and pull.

  I knew during this songwriting phase that I was privileged to be working with such a genius as Mutt. He is a great writer and doesn’t need anyone to help him craft a hit song, but he wanted me to make the material we wrote together my own. So he might come up with an irresistible chord progression, I would listen to it a few times, and then start shaping a melody that fit. We’d duel back and forth, adapting the melody and chords until everything just started to click and Mutt flashed a thumbs-up. Something that adds to the fun of songwriting is that every song comes together in a different way. Mutt was incredible with the feel and groove of a song, and my challenge was to write lyrics and melody to his phrasing for a lot of the time. We pretty much both did a bit of everything in the way of patching the songs together, and we’d often go off separately to write things on our own, then come together to see how we could combine our individual ideas. Some of our writing notes contain both of our handwriting, as we shared the same paper pad, taking turns jotting lyrics down as we went. Some of what we wrote together stemmed from what I’d previously written as well, and he’d morph his ideas into my lyrics, and mine into his. Some songs evolved from foundations we’d each had in storage for years, with the other person building upon the existing framework. I learned so much from Mutt about songwriting during this time, and I learned it fast.

  I made good on my promise to Luke Lewis and flew back to Music City a few days before a meeting about my future. Let me tell you, was I a pack of nerves wondering how he would react to the news that I had run off with the “rock” guy.

  Sitting across from Luke felt like being in front of your school principal, who clasps his hands on his desk and intones seriously, “So, young lady, what have you been up to in your absence?” I beat around the bush for a minute, squirming in my chair, restless and anxious as I tried to find a comfortable position and begin explaining myself. I felt naughty for being so secretive about things since I was signed to a serious contract, and I felt obligated to be honest with them about my plans musically. I was in a vulnerable position not knowing what Luke’s reaction would be, if I
’d be dropped from the label because of my careless decision to run off writing with a “rock” guy when I was supposed to be making country records. What if he expelled me? I guess I’d find out.

  “First, I just want to say that I’m really excited about my new music, and I cannot thank you enough for giving me the chance to show what I can do as a songwriter.” Of course, if he didn’t like what he heard, the A&R department would be taking me shopping at the Music Row publishing companies again. Luke wanted to know what song direction I was interested in, so that A&R could match me with a suitable producer. Of the two producers on Shania Twain, Harold Shedd was no longer with the label. As for Norro Wilson, he was an obvious choice, but, Luke emphasized, no decision had been made yet.

  I finally just came out with it.

  “I’ve been cowriting for weeks with Mutt Lange, and we’ve pretty much finished a full album’s worth of songs.”

  I was on edge waiting for his response, like the anxious feeling of waiting for an important test result. Luke’s a laid-back kind of guy, and although he has plenty to say, he gets to the point and sums things up with few words. He sat up in his chair as his eyes widened slightly, and all he pretty much said was, “Holy shit, that’s cool!”

  You cannot imagine the relief I felt. However, I was not about to press my luck and start talking about my hope that Mutt would produce the album. It was enough to break the news that my intentions were to record my own songs this time around and more, that they were cowritten with the rock legend Mutt Lange. Actually, Mutt had not even raised the suggestion of producing me yet, since we did not know if PolyGram would balk at my recording our collaboration, and besides, he already had other projects on the go, so time was also an issue. Luke conceded that the news might be viewed unfavorably in some quarters of the country music field. Nashville wanted Nashville songs and Nashville producers, and Nashville musicians recording in Nashville studios. It was bad enough that I was a foreigner and pushing to record my own songs.