The record-breaking singer is back with her sixth album. She discusses deprivation, domestic violence and feeling triumphant after stage fright and surgery
‘What’s your favourite track?” Shania Twain asks, about her new album, speaking to me over a video call from her home in Switzerland. She has a strange approachability, as if you already know her, and not just because she has been famous since for ever. Even in the slightly vaudevillian years, she had those friendly eyes and a straightforwardness that now, at 57, she doesn’t try to mask.
My favourite track on Queen of Me, since she asks, is the first one, Giddy Up!, although I’m not sure it’s the right answer, as it’s light, playful, not the crunchiest. She seems OK with that, though: “It was my advice song, you know? It’s a silly way of saying: ‘Put some pep in your step, get some spice in your life, you know, put some up in your giddy.’ It’s really got a country stomp to it, and attitude, for sure.”
