Shania Twain, ‘Life’s About to Get Good’ [Listen]
Shaina Twain's new single is the kind of song that will thrill her hardcore fans, but her detractors may find more ammunition.
"Life's About to Get Good" is the lead single from the long-awaited new studio album that Twain has announced she will release in September. It's her first full album since Up! in 2002, and the good news is that the superstar shows some genuine musical and lyrical growth as compared with the sort of perpetually peppy pop-country that made her the best-selling female in country music in the 1990s.
Twain has said that her divorce from former producer Mutt Lange and the painful years that followed provided the inspiration for her new songs, and "Life's About to Get Good" definitely has some more serious, darker undertones than, say, "Man! I Feel Like a Woman" or "You're Still the One," as with the opening lines: "I wasn’t just broken, I was shattered / I trusted you so much, you're all that mattered."
She still has that same ability to grab a hook line and marry it to a simple melody that characterized her best work, and it's on full display in the chorus of "Life's About to Get Good," which has a breezy singalong quality despite a propensity for lyrics that could have been pulled from a self-help book.
"Life's about joy / Life's about pain / It's all about forgiving and the will to walk away / I'm ready to be loved / And love the way I should / Life's about / Life's about to get good," Twain sings.
Twain has succeeded in reinventing her sound enough that it doesn't automatically remind the listener of the signature sound associated with Lange's productions of her past hits, which is no small task. "Life's About to Get Good" is somewhat more organic than those tracks, blending keyboards and acoustic guitar with a gentle rhythm that almost borrows from a quasi-Caribbean cadence and melody in the verse before lifting into a pop-gospel chorus.
Twain admits her voice has changed since she struggled with dysphonia and Lyme disease, but while she delivers "Life's About to Get Good" in a slightly lower part of her register than some of her past hits, the basic character of her voice doesn't seem that different. It's somewhat hard to tell, since both her past recordings and "Life's About to Get Good" feature so many effects on Twain's vocals that it's difficult to determine how much of what you're hearing is her actual unfiltered vocal.
So, is "Life's About to Get Good" what fans were hoping for from Twain after such a long wait? If you're a longtime fan expecting to like it, you probably will. If you are a critic expecting to hate it, you probably will. But at the very least, "Life's About to Get Good" shows Twain trying to move forward in a different way musically after years of inactivity, and that's more than many of her contemporaries can say.
Listen to Shania Twain, "Life's About to Get Good"
Shania Twain Shares Inspiration Behind "Life's About to Get Good"
Shania Twain's "Life's About to Get Good" Lyrics:
I wasn’t just broken, I was shattered / I trusted you so much, you're all that mattered / You no longer loved me and I sang like a sad bird / I couldn't move on and I think you were flattered
Chorus
Life's about joy / Life's about pain / It's all about forgiving and the will to walk away / I'm ready to be loved / And love the way I should / Life's about / Life's about to get good
The longer my tears fell, the wider the river / It killed me that you'd give your life to be with her / I had to believe that things would get better / It was time to forget you forever
Life's about joy / Life's about pain / It's all about forgiving and the will to walk away / I'm ready to be loved / And love the way I should / Life's about / Life's about to get good
It took me so long to be strong / But I'm alive, and I hold on / To what I can feel, it hurts to heal / Oh when love lies
Repeat Chorus
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