There isn't much of k.d. lang you can cover in barely 10 minutes.

But that's all the time the label gives me to catch up with the crooner, who performs at the National Arts Centre on Saturday.

Fortunately, lang -- who has never been shy about her professional or personal life -- is showing a lot more of herself on the new disc Watershed.

Is it possible to come out twice? (The first time she came out as a lesbian was to The Advocate in 1992).

Lang began writing the 11 songs on Watershed six years ago. Initially, they were personal acknowledgments she kept to herself. It wasn't until she had about six songs that she started to think about recording them as an album.

"I didn't know I even had a record in me until I read them and felt they fit together well," lang says over the line from Los Angeles. "I didn't want to record them just because the world needed another k.d. lang record. But when I saw how naked and vulnerable I was in these songs, I knew I had to record them."

She co-wrote the songs with longtime writing partners David Piltch and Ben Mink, and, for the first time, produced the record herself.

"Finally after 20 years in the business, I have my first No. 1 record, Watershed," lang says. "Next to meeting my partner and becoming a Buddhist, everything seems to be coming together."

Producing a No. 1 album has done a lot for her confidence in her song writing.

"There's a little bit of jazz, a little country, a little of the Ingenue sound, a little Brazilian touch. I think it reflects all the styles that have preceded this in my catalogue. I didn't feel the need to be genre specific because this experience felt so wide open.

"Watershed is about my relationship to the world and to myself, and how my actions and thoughts affect my life and the lives of others," she adds. "Water moves around obstacles. That's where I am now."

It's jarring to hear lang open up so freely about her fears and insecurities. After all, she is one of the best pop singers since Streisand.

The woman's crooned with Tony Bennett and Roy Orbison. She's a real diva and divas don't crumble.

"I've lived through stardom and survived. Think about it. I have a No. 1 recording and can still walk downtown in Ottawa and not be recognized. That's a wonderful luxury."

But more importantly, for lang it's about not role-playing and forcing herself to be anything other than what she is.

"I'm excited about being middle-aged," she says without a trace of irony about being 46.

"Now I can engage with both extremes, the young and the old because that's where I'm at. Old enough to remember the old favourites (she's collecting Bobbi Gentry and Doris Day recordings), but still young enough to be curious what's coming next."