Ill Make You Feel Like a Woman Again
On the surface, Shania Twain's 1999 hit "Man! I Experience Like a Woman!" is the ultimate girl power canticle. With lyrics like "No inhibitions, make no weather condition / Get a lilliputian outta line / I ain't gonna human action politically right / I merely desire to take a good fourth dimension / The best thing about beingness a woman is the prerogative to have a little fun," information technology's all nigh letting loose for a no concord'southward bar night on the town.
But the actual inspiration behind the song? Crossdressers.
Twain has said the hit, which she co-wrote with producer-turned-ex-hubby Robert John "Mutt" Lange, from her 1997 album Come On Over, was probable inspired by nights out at gay clubs with her friends during her teen years. And it's no wonder that today, it's become equally pop with elevate queens as it has with audiences of every kind.
Twain had a 'fascination' with 'men transforming themselves into cute women'
Although she had been writing songs since she was 10, when Twain was 18, she moved to Toronto to focus on a music career. "If I was to achieve my long-term goal of making music for a living, this is where I needed to be," she wrote in her 2011 autobiography From This Moment On .
She shared a one-bedroom flat with two girlfriends who were both going to higher in the Ontario majuscule. "Had I lived past myself at 18, I might have become a hermit," she wrote in the volume. "Fortunately, my roomies, while hardly political party girls, were sociable and introduced me to new, interesting friends from school."
One such friend was Sheriff, a "flamboyant guy from Trinidad." On Friday nights, the girls ofttimes went out to gay confined with him and his friends. "They'd come up over to our identify commencement, and we'd all dress up and put on night eyeliner — the guys included," she continued in the book. "Madonna had just hit it big, and everyone was copying her expect. We'd dress similar her, dorsum-rummage our hair until it was too large and all spiky, so head out on the town."
For a small-boondocks daughter from Timmins, the feel was eye-opening. "This was an run a risk for me, as it was all new," she wrote. "Gay bars had the best trip the light fantastic music and the most impressive dancers....Beingness inexperienced at applying makeup, I marveled at how artistic and glamorous some of the men were. They looked and so gorgeous, with features that had been defined and exaggerated with blushes, liners, shadows and accessories."
And patently, that impressed her much. "My fascination with this initial introduction to men transforming themselves into beautiful women likely sowed the seed of inspiration for a song I would write years later: 'Man! I Feel Like a Woman!'" she revealed in her book.
Shania Twain'south "Man, I Experience Like a Woman" music video
Photo: YouTube
A local gig opened her eyes to the earth of operation and drag
While she was discovering new worlds and honing her craft, an unthinkable tragedy happened when she was 21: Her mother, Sharon, and stepfather, Jerry, were killed in a car accident.
"I was merely going to give up music," Twain told Land Weekly in 1995. "I idea, my family comes first. I accept to accept care of them. I didn't even call back of the future."
As fate would take it, taking care of her younger siblings Carrie-Ann, Darryl and Marking, came in the class of a performing job at Deerhurst Resort in Huntsville, Ontario. "I'g lucky I got the job at Deerhurst because information technology was music," she continued.
Non only did the job go on her on runway, but it also introduced her to the globe of showmanship. "Deerhurst was the start time I was directed on phase and it was the first time I had dancers. Information technology educated me," she told the Canadian publication Macleans in 2015.
"When information technology was time to put together my prove in Vegas, all that dazzle wasn't foreign to me. I was familiar with the whole feel of a big phase show considering of my existence at that place," she said of the resort. "It was like a mini-Vegas! Or like attention a Vegas performing arts school."
Some sources report that her exposure to elevate performers during her time in that location also contributed to the influences of "Human being! I Experience Similar a Woman!"
Twain believes the song brings people together
Twain's early influences from her Toronto club days and her Vegas-similar preparation likely all combined to bring the frivolous fun to "Man! I Feel Like a Adult female!" which extends its wide entreatment to every genre. Rolling Stone even chosen the music video, in which Twain dresses upwards in a menswear-inspired look, complete with a height hat, "stereotypically male and indulgently female." And, similar in her early gay club days, the men in the video don perfect eyeliner.
"A lot of straight men sing 'Man! I Feel Like a Adult female!' just for the sheer entertainment of it," she said in a 2017 interview with PrideSource. "I think songs like that accept been great, maybe, contributors to bringing us together, if non for anything than just for the common denominator of music and owning that for whatever it means to them — and that breaks down barriers."
In fact, that's what Twain relies on when she'due south performing songs that she's written similar this — highly-seasoned to the love of music over anything that could spark controversy. "I like to accept a humour about everything, specially things that tin can accept a lot of tension," she continued. "A song like 'Man! I Experience Like a Woman!' but smacks it dead for me. The audience issue is not something I worry about. I'm respectful to my audition and I appreciate them for relating to my music regardless of their bespeak of view on whatever it is, whether information technology's politics or social bug. I'm not here to estimate."
Shania Twain's "Man, I Feel Similar a Woman" music video
Photo: YouTube
Twain believes 'entertainment doesn't have a gender'
No matter her original intention, Twain has become an idol, specially in the drag queen community.
The first time she came across a drag performer dressed as herself was at a Las Vegas imposter show. "It was incredible," she said. "The country globe...might exist more than bourgeois, only information technology's funny, three of the artists that were in the prove were myself, Reba McEntire and Dolly Parton. I thought that was so wonderful… Any artist that is, on a visual level, very expressive would make a great imposter night subject."
And it's that gender-bending which she appreciates. "Entertainment doesn't have a gender. The fashions that ended upwards stringing together my career — specially the epic, iconic looks — [go] both ways," she told Macleans. "Information technology can be drag queen-y as easily equally it tin can be a sophisticated adult female. We created a seamless, natural identify for all of us."
In fact, she even proudly doles out advice for drag performers who want to mimic her style. As she told PrideSource, the essential ingredients are: "Something leopard impress, and I would say a top chapeau. The boots, for sure!"
Source: https://www.biography.com/news/shania-twain-man-i-feel-like-a-woman-inspiration-drag
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