With a new album out on Friday (July 24), it’s like that most wonderful time of year for Shania Twain.
Little Miss Twain (via Republic Nashville) is the Canadian country-pop superstar’s seventh studio album, and the followup to 2023’s Queen of Me, which peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200.
“The anticipation is really high and I’m feeling a little bit like Christmas morning is coming up,” she told Jimmy Fallon during a visit to NBC’s The Tonight Show, which aired Wednesday (July 22). “It’s such a long, big effort. I write, you know, my own music and everything. So by the time it is ready… it’s a gift to be able to know what people think about it. That’s the gift and the reward for me.”
That present is wrapped with vulnerable, intimate details of Twain’s early years, some of which she shared for her late-night spot. An eight-year-old Shania, then Eilleen Regina Twain, cut her teeth as a performer in “smoky small bars,” filled with “mostly men, mostly intoxicated,” she explains. “I was definitely the only child performing.” It was in those dingy venues where she earned her nickname, and gave her the title for this album; in those days, she would be introduced with, “Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome to the stage, Little Miss Twain.”
The title track is primarily about her mom and the roles she played in Shania’s early career, from manager, to agent, driver, and everything else. Her parents weren’t able to witness Shania’s global success story, her transformation from Little Miss Twain to the best-selling female country artist of them all. They died in a car accident when she was 22.
The Canadian singer and songwriter also confirmed the rumors of a musical and biopic. “It’s all real, it’s all happening. A lot of these things have been in the works for a while,” she admits. There’s no shortage of tales to tell, including the run of three straight albums that were certified diamond by the RIAA, beginning with 1995’s The Woman In Me; the five Grammy Awards’ the 100 million-plus album sales; her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; and the downs, including that fatal crash; her battle with Lyme disease; and multiple surgeries, including “very intensive” open-throat operations which took its toll on her vocals and her mental health.
It’s now all rosy, and busy, for Twain. She opened for Harry Styles during his 12-show Wembley Stadium run in London earlier this summer, having made a surprise guest appearance during his headlining set at Coachella 2022. With that record-setting residency, Twain missed the wedding of the year, the nuptials of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. Shania will give TayTay a big hug when they next meet. Before that happens, Twain showered the pop superstar with praise for her songwriting. “She’s a fabulous performer. I think if you wrote a song for her it would be a hit, no matter what,” she enthused. “But she does write her own songs. She sits down at home, plays the piano, plays the guitar. So, I admire her musicianship and her commitment to telling her stories. So I love her. I love everything about her.”
Watch the Tonight Show interview below.
Twain also played a round of “Box of Lies” with Fallon, and performed album cut “Dirty Rosie,” a song whose lyrics reach deep into her youth. She learned to drive at age 10, out of necessity in a family that lived and worked in the woods. “We never could afford new vehicles when I was a kid,” she recounts, “and now if I had a choice of having a faded old red work truck,” like the one she used to ride, “her name would be Dirty Rosie.”
Watch below and read Billboard’s interview with Twain here.
