Shania Twain says that Prince wanted to collaborate with her on an album that would be as big as Fleetwood Mac's 1977 LP Rumours.
In conversation with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe to discuss the release of her sixth studio album Queen Of Me, which is out today (February 3), the country star reminiscences on the time Prince invited her to form a creative partnership which could yield a blockbuster pop/rock album.
The offer apparently came in 2008, while the singer was embroiled in a messy divorce with her then-husband/superstar producer Mutt Lange. Twain revisits a phone call with the Minneapolis musician, and recalls: "We're on the phone, and he said, 'Shania, why don't you come to Paisley Park? I want to make the next Rumours album with you,'"
"And that was the weirdest thing he could've ever said because Mutt's standard on where he thought I could live as a standard was that album, the Rumours album. He said that to me."
While such a proposal would have been instantly snapped up most musicians, Twain explains how at the time, she wasn't feeling all that confident in her own vocal abilities due to a recent battle with Lyme disease, and how the timing of her divorce hardly sweetened the moment.
She continues, "When Prince said that to me, I’m like, ‘Oh man, I’m not even divorced yet.’ I’m just like, ‘I’ve been dumped,’ but I’m not, obviously, divorced yet. I’m like, this is way too ironic what you’re saying. Right? And I’m such a major Prince fan.
"I was still working on it. I was so far from finding it, still," she says. "I was writing, but I was too insecure to get with Prince in the studio. I was too insecure in every way."
The pair's collaboration to create the next great best-selling pop/rock album obviously never came to fruition, which, according to the singer, was also in part due to Prince's dislike of swearing.
"He says to me, 'Well, if you do decide to come to Paisley Park, there’s no swearing allowed here.
"So that was another strike. I'm like, 'Oh, no, I love you so much, but I don't think I could get through writing and recording an album without swearing somewhere along the way! What are you going to do to me if I swear? I'm going to have to stand in the corner or something!'".
Speaking of how such a high-profile collaboration could never have happened during such an overwhelming period of her life, she adds: "I don't think I was ready for what all that was going to mean for me."
