Janis Ian: Society's Child

Janis Ian was born on April 7, 1951 in New York City and today is her 59th birthday, which may or may not come up on the particular "born today" list you read, but most of them have vanilla descriptions, except in the case of Brainy History, which reports: "Janis Ian, born in New York City, lesbian and folk rocker, At 17."

Can you believe someone actually wrote that on there? Janis Ian is well used to labels by now but it is still ironic that a site with a name like 'brainy' would sum up a life like Janis Ian's in one sentence, not to mention putting her sexual orientation before what she is famous for - her music!

Back in the 60s, Janis Ian endured far worse labels, including being called one of the greatest threats to the future of the white race. In 1967, a teenage Janis came out with her song: "Society's Child." (listen here). This is a beautiful, haunting song and one that was indeed about a pertinent issue, particularly in the area where Janis was growing up in the 1960s. It describes an interracial relationship between a (presumably) white teen girl and a black teen boy, and how the girl decides the relationship is not worth the pressure and scrutiny she has to go through in her daily life, let alone her mother's understated disapproval. It also addresses the hypocrisy of the girl's teachers.

In her 2008 autobiography, Ms. Ian talks about the reception she got with her controversial song, which ranged from being spit at to being called an 'n--lover.' The song was actually released 2 times before it became a hit. I was a teenager growing up in the same area. I witnessed many parents' reactions to "Society's Child," not just my own and it is a little hard to convey the atmosphere, but at the time, many teens were still being pressured not to date other nationalities within their own race, never mind another race.

Some of the negative reviews of Ms. Ian's autobiography are a bit astounding. Not that she didn't have any positive reviews -- far from it. Singers like Joan Baez and Odetta lauded her autobiography, describing Janis as "brilliant," an honest testament to a woman who wrote these lyrics at the tender age of 13:

"My teachers all laugh, their smirking stares,
cutting deep down in our affairs,
Preachers of equality, think they believe it,
then why won't they just let us be."

The song was well ahead of its time and was banned from many radio stations. Janis describes how she was asked to change the race of the boy in her song, but refused. She did not want to get a hit record by "selling out." She says "Joan Baez didn't have hit records. Peter DeFarge didn't have hit records. Bob Dylan did, and he was my hero. Still he had them on his own terms, and that is what I intended to do."

And that is what Janis Ian did, but as we all know, for most musicians, there is a price to pay for that independence and it did cost Janis, at least in the USA. By 1975, Janis was back in the spotlight winning 2 Grammy awards for her most popular song in the USA, "At 17," a bittersweet ballad about an ugly duckling facing how things will not come as easy to her as they will to more beautiful classmates. Both of Janis' hit songs have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame: "Society's Child" in 2002 and "At 17" (listen here) in 2008.

Janis is often named on lists of bisexual singers since she was married from 1978 to 1983 to Tino Sargo before she married her current partner, Patricia Snyder, in Canada in 2003. She details the abusiveness of her marriage to Tino Sargo in her autobiography and this is one of the points that she is criticized on:

"... her autobiography painted her as naive and as a victim throughout life. Hopefully she has reached a place in life where her brilliance and strength can put that in the past."

Well, it is in the past, but does that mean it didn't happen at all? It's ironic how people feel that one should not talk about things in the past honestly and openly, the way it was experienced. It's okay if you're telling them what they want to hear about, who you knew in the music business, etc., and yes, Janis knew plenty of 60s icons like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. But it's Janis Ian's autobiography and her life. There is always an abuser and a victim in a domestic abuse story, or it wouldn't be abuse. But since the current thinking is the victim needs to claim some responsibility for allowing the abuser to be an abuser, these types of criticisms are to be expected.

In the same way as it would have been selling out for Janis to change the boy's race in "Society's Child," it would be selling out to change her life story to make it more marketable.

And that's not what Janis Ian is about.

Sources: Wikipedia and
Google Books: Janis Ian: Society's Child - my autobiography
Janis Ian Dot Com