Mutt Lange, Shania Twain and Srimati Radharani

Robert John "Mutt" Lange

Robert John "Mutt" Lange

Recently I've been working my way through the recordings of song writer and producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange [wikipedia]. He is a prolific and proficient producer who has worked with many artists including AC/DC, Def Leppard, Billy Ocean, Nickelback, and Foreigner. He has co-written and produced many hit singles and has won four Grammy awards.

Def Leppard's Hysteria was my first encounter with Mutt. That album came out in 1987 and was a massive worldwide hit, selling over 20 million copies and spawning seven hit singles. I was thirteen at the time, and remember vividly buying and listening to the album over and over again. Mutt's approach in creating this album has lead to him being called the "George Lucas of music production". Pushing then-current technology to its absolute limit he created the aural equivalent of Star Wars - an album that redefined the genre of pop music.

Mutt is known for his obsessive perfectionist approach. The engineer on Hysteria, Mike Shipley, recounts how he sat next to Mutt with a Graphic EQ on his lap and manually performed equalization on each syllable of a vocal passage. This is back in the days before DAW's and automation, so they would practice the moves over and over again before tracking the eq to tape.

Mutt is also well-known for his incredible stamina in the studio. One story has a fiddle player asking for a break after a non-stop day of trying to get the perfect take for a part. Mutt asked him: "Take a break? What for?" The musician replied: "Have you ever tried holding one of these things under your chin for eight hours straight?"

Mutt is also an accomplished song writer, referred to by Def Leppard as the "sixth member of the band" during his years and albums with them, and is also an talented singer - singing all the backing vocals on Hysteria and giving it the distinctive sound it has.

Mutt follows Sant Mat [Sant Mat], a form of Sikhism, and is a strict vegetarian. Krpamoya prabhu has written a blog post ["Spiritual Lessons from a Heavy Metal Rocker] detailing how Mutt engaged him and his wife to care for Rick Allen, Def Leppard's drummer, after he lost his left arm in a car crash in the mid-80s.

The accident and subsequent journey that Rick took to relearn how to drum with only one arm, along with the extremely hard work of recording Hysteria with Mutt (guitarist Phil Collen said it was "worse than working in a factory") meant the album took years to finished and release, but the eventual result was a unprecedented release that was an inflection point in pop music.

I'm going through Mutt's work with other groups to help me separate out Mutt's distinct contribution. By listening to albums where the musicians change, I can begin to discern the common threads. Those elements are Mutt's contribution. I'm doing this to develop my own skills in music production. The most recent area of output that I've been listening to are his recordings with Shania Twain.

Shania Twain

Shania Twain

Shania Twain is a Canadian country singer who has gone on to become, in partnership with Mutt, one of the biggest selling female artists, crossing over into the pop market.

Shania released her debut album on Mercury records, and it sold 50,000 units, which is not enough for real commercial success. However, Mutt saw one of her videos on late night TV in Europe and immediately saw her potential. He contacted her and they began to work together, fell in love, and were married.

Mutt invested his money (some say a million dollars) and together they produced the album "The Woman in Me", with Mutt and Twain co-writing the songs. The album became the best-selling country album of all time.

The next album was where they hit their stride: 1997's "Come on Over" beat the previous album to become the new best-selling country album of all time, and the best-selling album ever by a female artist. According to its wikipedia article it was certified 22× Platinum in the US (2x Diamond under new RIAA), 2× Diamond in Canada, 15× Platinum in Australia, and 10× Platinum in the United Kingdom. The album had 12 singles.

The follow-up album, 2002's Up!, has sold 16 million units, and represents another revolutionary approach by Mutt. This album has three distinct versions - a country version (green), a pop version (red), and a blue version ("world" - recorded in India in a Bollywood style). Each album contains the same 19 songs, but with a different musical arrangement behind the vocals. Mutt says that he did this in order to provide a different album to cater to each market - the country market, the pop market, and presumably, India.

Shania Twain's 2002 album, Up!

Billboard had the following to say about the album:

This double-CD follow-up to Shania Twain's previous two multiplatinum efforts features both "pop" and "more pop" versions of 19 new Twain/Lange compositions. Both discs boast a signature Lange sound—crisp, punchy, multi-layered, with hooks for days. It's also quintessential Shania, light as vapor, sweet as sugar, rendered with personality and undeniable charisma. Twain works hard on such bouncy fare as the title cut, the swirling debut single "I'm Gonna Getcha Good!," and such interchangeable girl-power anthems as "She's Not Just a Pretty Face," "Nah!," "In My Car (I'll Be the Driver)," and Latin-tinged "Juanita." The breezy "Forever and for Always" shows impressive range, and Twain infuses "I Ain't Goin' Down" with some passion. It's hard to stay UP! over the course of 19 cuts (never mind 38), and Twain's trademark vocal tricks do get repetitive. All the better for her fans, though; expect precious metal.

I bought the red + blue version of Up! on iTunes and have been listening to it on shuffle play for the last couple of days.

I can see why Mutt was so taken with Shania when he saw her on TV. She has a sweet innocence in her looks, her voice, and her song lyrics. When she sings it is so sincere.

Shania also practices Sant Mat, is a vegetarian, and lives part of the time near Lake Wanaka, in New Zealand.

Separation

After 14 years of marriage, with a six-year old son, and a successful career together, Mutt left Shania at the beginning of 2008.

Mutt explained to reporters that it was simply "two people growing apart".

It came as a surprise to the public, and also to Shania, who was completely surprised and left shocked.

It soon came out that Mutt had left Shania for the manager of their Swiss chalet home, who was a friend of the family, and who left her husband for Mutt.

Quite a painful situation for Shania.

Listening to her songs knowing this makes it an even more powerful experience. The music and production acts as an amplifier for the emotional content. In songs where she expresses her love and appreciation you can really feel the investment of her heart in her relationship with Mutt. In songs we she sings of heartbreak you can really feel it.

Shania and Srimati Radharani

Knowing all this has affected the way I have been listening to Up! over the weekend. The emotions really began to impact me last night, and as I listened to a track this morning on the way across town to teach a yoga class things began to fall into place.

To start the shuffle play as I headed out of the driveway on my scooter, I selected a track that particularly struck me: I'm Jealous.

If I were the moon,
I could catch your eye
I'm jealous of the moon
If I were the wind,
I would make you fly
I'm jealous of that too

I wish I were the sun shining on your face
Caressing like a lover
I would wrap you in a warm embrace
We'd be holdin' one another
(I'm jealous of the sun)
I'm jealous of the sun
(Jealous of the sun)
Oh, I'm jealous of the sun

Oh, I don't wanna share you with nothing else
I gotta have you to myself
Oh I can't help it
I'm so in love
I just can't get you close enough, no

When the sun's on your skin
I can't hold it in
And I know it's a sin
But I'm jealous of the sun

I wish I were the rain runnin' down your neck
And drippin' from your fingers
Then I could be the drops rollin' off your back
I'd love to let it linger
(Jealous of the rain)
Oh, I'm jealous of the rain

Oh, I don't wanna share you with nothing else
I gotta have you to myself
Oh I can't help it
I'm so in love
I just can't get you close enough, no

When it rains on your face
I almost can taste
Your beauty, your grace
I'm jealous of the rain

When the wind's in your hair
The way it blows through the air
Oh, it's seems so unfair, yeah

When the moon's in your eyes
You seem to light up the skies, yeah
And I realize
I'm even jealous of the moon

This song reminds me of the statement of the gopis cursing Brahma, the creator, for giving them eyelids, which block their vision of Krishna. It is a poetic way of expressing the extent of their love for Krishna. This song takes a similar tack, poetically expressing the extent of her love through jealousy of the elements such as the wind, rain, moon, and the sun, for their interaction with the body of her beloved. It also evokes the prayers of devotees to become the dust that lies beneath the feet of Krishna and is touched by him as he walks on it.

In another song, When You Kiss Me, she sings:

I can see you with me when I'm older
All my lonely night are finally over
You took the weight of the world off my
shoulders (the world just goes away)

[Chorus:]
Oh, when you kiss me

I know you miss me--
and when you're with me
The world just goes away
The way you hold me
The way you show me that you
adore me--oh, when you kiss me
Oh, yeah

You are the one, I think I'm in love
Life has begun

I can see the two of us together
I know I'm gonna be with you forever
Love couldn't be any better

In Sanskrit this is called sambandha - "love in union". When the loved and the beloved are united these are the emotions that are experienced.

When Radha and Krishna were together in Vrndavan these were the emotions that Radharani experienced - such an intense mixture of feelings - exhilaration, jealousy, giddiness, contentment, hope for the future. In these songs Shania sings of an ideal love, and that is the situation that Radharani experienced. It does not get any better than that.

And then, Krishna left her abruptly and with complete detachment, just as Mutt (at least apparently) left Shania - stating "it's just two people growing apart". The effect that this has is complete devastation.

In the song It only hurts when I'm breathing, Shania sings:

Hope life's been good to you
since you've been gone
I'm doin' fine now I've finally moved on
It's not so bad I'm not that sad

I'm not surprised just how well I survived
I'm over the worst, and I feel so alive
I can't complain I'm free again

Chorus:
And it only hurts when I'm breathing
My heart only breaks when it's beating
My dreams only die when I'm dreaming
So, I hold my breath to forget

Again, Mutt's production amplifies the emotion ten-fold, and it is his voice creating the swell of emotion in the backing vocals. In the same way it is Krishna's shakti that creates and sustains these emotions in his Vrndavan pastimes.

After Krishna left Vrndavan, the inhabitants simply lay down on the ground, as if dead. Their bodies turned a blackish colour from the devastation. They were not even breathing. This song perfectly describes this emotion: "It only hurts when I'm breathing, so I hold my breath to forget".

Krishna left Vrndavan and Radha, and went off to live another life in Dwaraka, surrounded by new friends and queens. He had lived in Vrndavan for some time and dallied with Radha while he was there, but eventually he returned to the city life and the palace. He was, after all, the son of a King. Radha had fallen completely in love with him and found complete satisfaction and contentment in her relationship with him, and was sure that the moment would last forever ("I can see you with me when I'm older / I can see the two of us together / I know I'm gonna be with you forever").

In the same way, Mutt lived with Shania for 14 years. He was 16 years her senior, and eventually, it seems, after fulfilling his purposes with her he left to fulfill his destiny with someone else more suited to him. He left behind him someone who was fully devoted to him, with a devastated heart.

Radha and Krishna are the perfect ideal of these emotions and these pastimes. We see these things reflected in this world, and through those reflections we can catch glimpses of the powerful emotions that are expressed and experienced in the world of love in transcendence.

Shania Twain Up!: Great album, with amazing production, emotionally very powerful.

Update: I think it was listening to the blue "world" arrangements (done in Bollywood film music style) that helped me make the connection with the pastimes of Radha and Krishna.