An astonishing performance by 16 year old Janis on the Smothers Brothers show.
Come to my door, baby,
face is clean and shining black as night.
My mother went to answer, you know,
and you looked so fine.
Now I can understand your tears and your shame.
She called you "boy" instead of your name.
When she wouldn't let you inside.
When she turned and said
"But honey, he's not our kind."
She said I can't see you any more, baby.
Can't see you anymore.
Walk me down to school, baby.
Everybody's acting deaf and blind.
Until they turn and say
why don't you stick to your own kind.
(Not sure about the rest of this verse. It sounds to me like)
My teachers all laugh, they smirk and stare.
Cutting deep down in our affair.
Preachers of equality. They say "Believe us"
but why won't they just let us be?
They say I can't see you anymore, baby.
Can't see you anymore.
One of these days I'm gonna stop my listening,
Gonna raise my head up high.
One of these days I'm gonna raise my glistening wings and fly.
But that day will have to wait for awhile.
Baby, I'm only society's child.
When we're older things may change.
But for now this is the way they must remain.
I say I can't see you any more, baby.
Can't see you anymore.
No, I don't wanna see you any more, baby
Janis Ian (born
Janis Eddy Fink, April 7, 1951) is an
American songwriter, singer, musician,
columnist, and
science fiction author.
[1]
Ian first entered the folk music scene while still a teenager in the
mid-sixties; most active musically in that decade and the 1970s, she has
continued recording into the 21st century. In 1975, Ian won a
Grammy Award for her song, "
At Seventeen".
Biography
Childhood
Born to a
Jewish family in
New York City,
[2] she was primarily raised in
New Jersey, initially on a farm, and attended
East Orange High School[3] and the
New York City High School of Music & Art. Her parents, Victor (a music teacher) and Pearl, ran a summer camp in upstate New York. In that
Cold War
era they were frequently under government surveillance because of their
left-wing politics. Ian would allude to these years later in her song
"God and the FBI". Young Janis admired the work of folk pioneers such as
Joan Baez and
Odetta.
Starting with piano lessons at the age of 6 or 7, by the time she hit
her teens, Ian had learned the organ, harpsichord, French horn, flute
and guitar.
[4] At the age of 12, Ian wrote her first song, "Hair of Spun Gold," which was subsequently published in the folk publication
Broadside
and was later recorded for her debut album. In 1964, she legally
changed her name to Janis Ian, using as her new last name her brother
Eric's middle name.
[2]
Music career
At the age of thirteen, Ian wrote and sang her first hit single, "
Society's Child (Baby I've Been Thinking)",
about an interracial romance forbidden by a girl's mother and frowned
upon by her peers and teachers: the girl ultimately decides to end the
relationship, claiming the societal norms of the day have left her no
other choice. Produced by
George "Shadow" Morton and released three times between 1965 and 1967, "Society's Child" finally became a national hit upon its third release, after
Leonard Bernstein featured it in a TV special titled
Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution.
[2]
The song's lyrical content was taboo for some radio stations, and they
withdrew or banned it from their playlists accordingly; in her 2008
autobiography
Society's Child, Ian recalls receiving hate mail
and death threats as a response to the song, and mentions that a radio
station in Atlanta that played it was burned down. In the summer of
1967, "Society's Child" reached #14 on the
Billboard Hot 100, the single having sold 600,000 copies, and the album 350,000.
[5]
Ian relates on her website that, although the song was originally
intended for Atlantic and the label paid for her recording session, the
label subsequently returned the
master to her and quietly refused to release it. Years later, Ian says, Atlantic's president at the time,
Jerry Wexler, publicly apologized to her for this. The single and Ian's 1967 eponymous debut album were finally released on
Verve Forecast; her album was also a hit, reaching #12. In 2001, "Society's Child" was inducted into the
Grammy Hall of Fame, which honors recordings considered timeless and important to
music history. Her early music was compiled on a double
CD entitled
Society's Child: The Verve Recordings in 1995.
"Society's Child" stigmatized Ian as a one-hit wonder until her most successful single in the United States, "
At Seventeen", a bittersweet commentary on adolescent
cruelty, the illusion of
popularity, and teenage
angst,
as reflected upon from the perspective of a 24-year-old, was released
in 1975. "At Seventeen" was a smash, receiving tremendous acclaim from
critics and record buyers alike — it charted at #3 on the Billboard Hot
100 and hit #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart. It won the 1975
Grammy Award for
Best Pop Vocal Performance - Female beating out
Linda Ronstadt, who was nominated for her
Heart Like a Wheel album;
Olivia Newton-John; and
Helen Reddy. Ian performed "At Seventeen" as a musical guest on the debut of
Saturday Night Live on October 11, 1975. The song's album,
Between the Lines,
was also a smash and hit #1 on Billboard's Album chart. It was quickly
certified Gold and later earned a 'Platinum' certification for sales of
over one million copies sold in the US. Another measure of her success
is anecdotal: on Valentine's Day 1977, Ian received 461 Valentine cards,
having indicated in the lyrics to "At Seventeen" that she never
received any as a teenager.
[6]
"Fly Too High" (1979), produced by
disco producer
Giorgio Moroder, was her contribution to the soundtrack of the
Jodie Foster film
Foxes, also featured on Ian's 1979 album
Night Rains. It earned her a
Grammy nomination and became a hit single in many countries, including
South Africa,
Belgium.
Australia,
Israel, and the
Netherlands.
Another country where Ian has achieved a high level of popularity is
Japan. She had two top 10 singles on the Japanese
Oricon charts, "Love Is Blind" in 1976, and "
You Are Love" in 1980; and her album
Aftertones topped Oricon's album chart in October 1976. "
You Are Love (Toujours Gai Mon Cher)" is the theme song of
Kinji Fukasaku's 1980 movie
Virus,
which was the most expensive Japanese film ever made at the time. Ian
has cut several other singles specifically for the Japanese market,
including 1998's "
The Last Great Place".
Even now, she's still regarded as the Godmother of Japanese
singer-songwriters, and has a thriving career there and in Europe.
By contrast, in the U.S., Ian made the pop charts only once more after "At Seventeen" ("
Under the Covers", #71 in 1981), though she had several more songs reach the
Adult Contemporary
singles chart through 1980 (all failing to make the Top 20, however).
She walked away from her CBS contract in 1982, while it still had three
albums to go. Ian deliberately spent much of the 1980s and early 1990s
without a record deal. During the 1982–1992 period she continued to
write songs, often in collaboration with songwriting partner
Kye Fleming, which were covered by the likes of
Amy Grant,
Bette Midler and
Marti Jones. She also studied under acting coach
Stella Adler and struck up a close friendship with her, which continued until the latter's death in 1992.
Ian finally became one of the first "indie artists," resurfacing in 1993, with the worldwide release of
Breaking Silence and its title song about incest.
[7] She also came out as a
lesbian with that release. She also, in 1993, made her
The Howard Stern Show appearance, where she performed a "new" version of "At Seventeen" about
Jerry Seinfeld. Since then Ian has released several albums.
Ian's most recent album,
Folk Is The New Black,
was released jointly by the Rude Girl and Cooking Vinyl labels in 2006.
It is the first in over twenty years where she did all the songwriting
herself.
[8]
She still tours and has a devoted fan base. Her autobiography,
"Society's Child," was released by Penguin in mid-2008 to critical
acclaim.
Other artists have recorded Ian's compositions, most notably
Roberta Flack, who had a hit in 1973 with Ian's song "Jesse",
[7][dead link] also recorded by
Joan Baez and
Dottie West; Ian's own version is featured on her 1974 album
Stars (the title song of which has also been oft-covered, including versions by
Cher,
Nina Simone and
Barbara Cook). Other artists who have recorded or performed songs written or co-written by Janis Ian include
Amy Grant,
Jeanette Dimech,
Sheena Easton,
Michele Pillar,
Mel Torme,
Michelle Wright,
Bette Midler ("Some People's Lives," a song written by Ian and her then-partner
Kye Fleming, became the title song of her
1990 album),
Jann Arden, and Japanese singer
Shiina Ringo (covered Ian's breakthrough Japanese hit, "Love Is Blind").
Criticism of the RIAA
She is an outspoken critic of the
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA),
[9] a
record industry organization which she sees as acting against the interests of musicians and
consumers. As such, she has willingly released several of her songs for free download from her website.
[10] Along with
science fiction author
Eric Flint,
she has argued that their experience provides conclusive evidence that
free downloads dramatically increased hard-copy sales, contrary to the
claims of RIAA and
NARAS.
[11] Ian's signature tune "
At Seventeen" sold over two million singles in the United States alone yet was never certified.
"I've been surprised at how few people are willing to get annoyed
with me over it," she laughs. "There was a little backlash here and
there. I was scheduled to appear on a panel somewhere and somebody from a
record company said if I was there they would boycott it. But that's
been pretty much it. In general the entire reaction has been favorable. I
hear from a lot of people in my industry who don't want to be quoted,
but say 'yeah, we're aware of this and we'd like to see a change too.'"
[12]
Writing and editing
In addition to being an award-winning
singer-songwriter, Ian writes
science fiction. A long-time reader of the genre, she got into
science fiction fandom in 2001, attending the
Millennium Philcon.
[13] Her short stories have been published in anthologies, and she co-edited, with
Mike Resnick, the anthology
Stars: Original Stories Based on the Songs of Janis Ian, published in 2003 (
ISBN 978-0-7564-0177-1). She also occasionally attends
science fiction conventions.
[14]
Ian has been a regular columnist for, and still contributes to the
LGBT news magazine,
The Advocate.
[15] She has a selection of her columns available on her website.
[16] She also contributed a column to
Performing Songwriter magazine from 1995 through 2003.
[17]
On July 24, 2008, Janis Ian released her autobiography
Society's Child (published by Penguin Tarcher) to much critical acclaim. An accompanying double CD,
The Autobiography Collection, has also been released with many of Ian's best loved songs.
Personal life
Ian married Portuguese filmmaker Tino Sargo in 1978; they divorced in
1983. Details of Sargo's physical and emotional abuse were discussed in
Ian's autobiography,
Society's Child. After moving to Nashville, she met Patricia Snyder in 1989. Ian has a stepdaughter by Snyder, and two grandchildren.
[18] Ian came out as a lesbian in 1993 with the worldwide release of her album
Breaking Silence.
[7] Snyder and Ian were married in Toronto on August 27, 2003.
[19]
Ian's mother, Pearl, was diagnosed with
multiple sclerosis
in 1975. To deal with her disease, Ian and her brother convinced Pearl
to pursue her lifelong dream of going to college. Pearl eventually
enrolled in
Goddard College's
adult education program, ultimately graduating with a Master's degree.
After Pearl's death, Ian decided to auction off merchandise and raise
money to endow a scholarship at Goddard specifically for older
continuing education students. This began what became the Pearl Foundation, which funds scholarships at other colleges including
Warren Wilson College.
[18]
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