Songoftheday 4/2/24 - I can still feel the way you want me when you hold me, I can still hear the words you whispered when you told me...

 

 

"Forever And For Always" - Shania Twain

from the album Up! (2002)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #20 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 16

 

Today's song comes from country crossover star Shania Twain, whose fourth album Up! had brought her back to the top 40 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in the late autumn of 2002 with "I'm Gonna Getcha Good!".  The follow-up was the title track "Up!", which stalled outside the top ten on Billboard's Country Songs radio chart at #12 while peaking at #63 on the Hot 100. At the close of 2002, the album track "When You Kiss Me" got enough country radio airplay to slip on to the chart at #60 (it was also a top-40 single in the United Kingdom at #21 and Germany at #30). 

The next song promoted to radio in America was the ballad "Forever And For Always". Written by Shania with then-husband and producer Robert "Mutt" Lange, the song had the same Hallmark card platitudes that "When You Kiss Me" (and a handful of her previous hits) had. I mean, it's quite pretty but it definitely is cut from a template used time and time before. Again, like "I'm Gonna Getcha Good", it was produced in three different color-coded versions, with the red "pop" version and green "country" version being joined on the international released by an Indian-style "blue" version. The mid-tempo "pop" take still has a lot of country touches, but with a glossier sheen on it. What stands out is Shania's comforting delivery, which elevates the lyrics quite a bit. The music video has her bringing us to the beach...

"Forever And For Always" brought Shania back to the top-40 on Billboard's Hot 100 for her most recent time to date in September of 2003. On the radio, mainstream top 40 stations had weened the "country" element from earlier in the decade out so it didn't show of there, but it did top Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") chart for six weeks, spending 77 weeks there, while getting to #30 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format, and peaked at #4 on the Country Songs airplay list. Internationally, the single made the top ten in Canada (#5 Sales), the United Kingdom (#6), Ireland (#6), Austria (#6), Romania (#8), and Germany (#9), while reaching the top-40 in New Zealand (#17), Switzerland (#26), Poland (#27 Airplay), and Hungary (#37). At the Grammy Awards in 2004, "Forever And For Always" was nominated in two categories, losing Best Female Country Performance to June Carter Cash for "Keep On The Sunny Side" and Best Country Song which went home with the writers of Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett's "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere". 

In America, the next single promoted to radio was "She's Not Just A Pretty Face", which rose to #9 on the Country Songs chart, but the power-pop song stalled down at #56 on the Hot 100. Shania was again nominated for the Best Female Country Vocal Grammy, but this time Gretchen Wilson's "Redneck Woman" took the prize (understandably that year). That was followed by "It Only Hurts When I'm Breathing", which got to #18 on the Country Songs chart, and while it did make it to #16 on the Adult Contemporary radio chart, it stopped at #71 on the Hot 100. Two other tracks from the album were released as singles internationally but not in the States. The uptempo capitalism parable "Ka-Ching!" was a decent hit, topping the single chart in Portugal, reaching the top ten in Austria (#2), Switzerland (#2), Hungary (#2), Romania (#2), Germany (#3), Poland (#3), and the UK (#8), and making the top-40 in the Netherlands (#11), France (#15), Norway (#15), Sweden (#17), Denmark (#17), Spain (#18),  Ireland (#27), Belgium (#31 Wallonia), and Italy (#38). The other, "Thank You Baby! (For Making Someday Come So Soon)", just missed the top ten in Britain at #11, and made the top-40 in Austria (#17), Germany (#20), Ireland (#23), and Switzerland (#35).

After three massive albums, Twain put out a Greatest Hits album in 2004, which spent a week at #2 on the Billboard 200 and eleven weeks atop the Country Albums list, going on to sell over four million copies. The lead song from the record, "Party For Two", paired the singer up with country artist Billy Currington on the "country" version and Sugar Ray's Mark McGrath on the "pop" version. The song went to #7 on the Country Songs chart, and #16 on the Adult Contemporary radio list, but it was shunned by "pop" radio, and only made it to #58 on the Hot 100. Still the single was a hit overseas, landing in the top ten in the UK, Germany, Spain, Canada, Austria, and Denmark. At the close of 2005, Twain popped into the Country Songs top-40 with "Shoes" from the Desperate Housewives TV show. The song, which was her first single since her debut album to not be written by her and Mutt, peaked at #29.

But then, Shania's life became like a storyline on Housewives unfortunately. Lange, who had been married to Twain since 1993, cheated on her with her best friend, leading to their divorce in 2008. And two years later, Shania married Frédéric Thiébaud, who happened to be the man the friend Lange cheated with was married to. WOW.

Without her professional partner (rightfully so), Shania took time off from recording for a few years. When she re-emerged in 2011 with a new song, "Today Is Your Day", which she wrote and co-produced, she came back to the country top-40 at #36, while becoming her most recent Hot 100 appearance at #66. However, instead of releasing a new album, Twain played a residency at the Caesar's Palace Hotel in Las Vegas which was very successful there. 

It would be six more years before Shania would release her first post-Lange album Now. The album spent a week at #1 on the Billboard 200, but only took seven weeks to fall off the list. The lead single, "Life's About To Get Good", scraped the Country Songs top-40 at #36, while climbing to #12 on the Adult Contemporary airplay chart. That was followed by "We Got Something They Don't", which is her most recent country radio hit at #47. 

Shania's most recent album, Queen Of Me, arrived in the beginning of 2023, and peaked at #10 on the Billboard 200 and #2 on the Country Albums list. From the set "Waking Up Dreaming" stopped at #11 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart, while the follow-up "Giddy Up!" bested it by a notch at #10. She also was featured on British pop singer Anne-Marie's song "UNHEALTHY", which was a decent hit in the UK at #18 while reaching the top ten on the radio lists there. 

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Here's the country-tinged "green version" of the song...

...and the Eastern-Asian inspired "blue version"...

Shania performed "Forever" on her Up! Close and Personal TV special...

and lastly, on her tour behind the album in Chicago...

Up tomorrow: Country duo travels the unpaved streets.