Man! I Feel Like A Woman!

Shania Twain wrote this ode to her feminine side with her producer husband Robert John "Mutt" Lange. She originally wrote it as a message of encouragement to herself, but the song then transformed into a celebration of her transition into womanhood. Speaking with Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest, Twain explained that she grew up in Canada as a tomboy, and once she started getting curves, it took her a long while to accept her womanly body. "The inspiration was, I started to appreciate the fact that I can really have fun being a woman," she said of the song's meaning. "I didn't realize it would have so much impact on others and that so many other people related to this."

Twain takes the Tina Turner approach of directing her songs to her female fans, which are her base. She learned that men might not sing along to songs like this one, but they aren't going to turn them off either. This attitude built her a huge fan base and made her a staple of Country radio, which skews heavily male. Program directors figured out that guys were happy to hear some Shania tunes mixed in with their Garth Brooks and Tim McGraw.

"Man! I Feel Like a Woman!" was the seventh single from Shania Twain's third album, Come On Over. After releasing her first album in 1993 when she was 28, it didn't seem like she's get past the first few rungs on the ladder, but then she met Mutt Lange and found her voice as a singer and songwriter. Her second album, The Woman In Me, was released in 1995 and included her first Country chart-topper: "Any Man Of Mine." Come On Over took her to a whole new level. "New Country" was still big, with the genre crossing over to pop and country radio stations still sprouting up like mushrooms. Lange could work in pretty much any genre - his most famous production is AC/DC's Back In Black album. Paired with Twain, he was able to reach even greater heights. The first single from the album was "Love Gets Me Every Time," which went to #25 in October 1997. "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!" peaked at #23 in November 1999 - more than two years later! That whole time, the album kept selling. It eventually was certified Diamond for 20 million copies sold in America. Thanks to this lengthy run of hits, Twain didn't release her next album, Up!, until 2002.