Long before Shania Twain became one of the biggest stars in country music, she was just a little girl from Canada trying to get to a television appearance.
And she almost ended up on the other side of the country.
Seriously.
Shania has just released a newly narrated audiobook version of her memoir, From This Moment On.
The book originally came out in 2011, but this new edition features Shania reading her own story, along with a new foreword reflecting on everything that’s happened since she first wrote it.
And one of the stories she’s sharing is absolutely incredible. People.com
Shania was about 11 years old.
She’d been booked to perform on a Canadian national television program in Toronto.
For a young girl who dreamed of becoming a professional singer, this was enormous.
The problem?
Her family didn’t have much money.
Flying wasn’t an option.
So her parents arranged for her to travel by train.
By herself.
At 11.
With a guitar.
And apparently a whole lot of confidence.
Shania boarded the train, settled into her seat and prepared for the overnight journey.
Everything seemed fine.
Until the conductor came around to check her ticket.
That’s when he explained something rather important.
She was on the wrong train.
Not slightly wrong.
Not the train that would arrive 20 minutes later.
This train wasn’t going to Toronto.
It was headed toward British Columbia.
In the opposite direction.
Across Canada. People.com
Imagine being 11 years old and hearing that.
Most kids would’ve panicked.
Shania apparently got annoyed.
She had a television show to get to.
And she wasn’t interested in missing it.
So she demanded that the conductor find a way to get her onto the correct train.
Eventually, railway employees worked out a solution.
They would stop the train.
Let Shania off.
And arrange for another train to pick her up.
Sounds reasonable.
Except for one small detail.
They dropped her off in the middle of the Canadian wilderness.
There she was.
Eleven years old.
Standing beside railroad tracks.
With her guitar.
Waiting for another train.
Shania recalls sitting on her guitar case and singing while she waited.
At one point, a train came roaring past without stopping.
Not exactly reassuring.
But eventually another train appeared.
This one slowed down.
A railway employee leaned out and asked whether she was the little girl trying to get to Toronto.
She was.
And she climbed aboard. People.com
Here’s the amazing part.
She made it to the television studio on time.
The person assigned to meet her in Toronto apparently had no idea what had happened.
As far as everybody at the television station knew, this little girl had simply arrived for her scheduled performance.
No drama.
No problems.
Nothing to see here.
Meanwhile, Shania had just completed what sounds like the opening scene of a movie.
And all because she was determined to sing on television.
That’s one of the stories included in the newly narrated edition of From This Moment On, released October 6.
But Shania isn’t simply revisiting her childhood in book form.
She also has new music out today.
The expanded edition of her album Little Miss Twain — The Places I’ll Go arrives Friday, October 9.
The project adds songs that explore more of her early life and the experiences that eventually brought her to Nashville. TotalNtertainment
That’s what makes the timing interesting.
Shania is telling the same larger story in two different ways.
Through music.
And through her own spoken memories.
The original Little Miss Twain album already explored her childhood, family and the influences that shaped her before she became famous.
It also featured collaborations with Tanya Tucker, Josh Homme and The War and Treaty.
Now the expanded edition takes that story further.
And the audiobook gives listeners something the printed book couldn’t.
Shania herself telling the stories.
That’s particularly meaningful when you consider how much she’s overcome.
She grew up in poverty.
She experienced a difficult childhood.
And when her parents died in a car accident, she was only 22 and suddenly responsible for helping raise her younger siblings. People.com
Years later came Nashville.
The record deal.
“The Woman in Me.”
“Any Man of Mine.”
“Man! I Feel Like a Woman!”
“You’re Still the One.”
And eventually more than 100 million records sold worldwide.
But long before any of that…
There was an 11-year-old girl standing beside railroad tracks in Canada.
Holding a guitar.
Waiting for a train.
And absolutely refusing to miss her chance.
That’s a pretty good country-music origin story.
Read and hear Shania Twain’s childhood train story at PEOPLE
