​​​"Society’s Child" was written and recorded by Janis Ian in the late 1960’s.  The song’s subject, an interracial relationship in which the young woman’s family does not approve, was considered scandalous for its time, and resulted in a wave of angry reactions across the nation, including the burning down of an Atlanta radio station when a DJ played the song on the air.

​Even in the otherwise peaceful and upscale San Fernando Valley enclave known as Encino, Janis recalls on her website about the unhappy people who bought tickets to her concert just so they could yell out racial epithets when she sang “Society’s Child.”  

That same teenager is now an older woman who came out later in her life and is now happily married to a woman named Patricia Snyder.  In 2008, Janis published her autobiography, appropriately entitled Society’s Child.

---

In this autobiography, Janis takes the reader through her entire career, from her time as a teenage recording artist to the present day.  Music aficionados might be more familiar with one of her later works, a song entitled “At Seventeen” that she wrote and recorded.  “At Seventeen” was released in 1974 and was re-recorded in 2013 by Celine Dion.  

---

“I learned the truth at seventeen...That love was meant for beauty queens...And high school girls with clear skinned smiles...Who married young and then retired.”

---

Janis was a musical guest on the very first episode of Saturday Night Live.  Later in her career, she would jokingly remark that perhaps being a guest on the second episode might have been a far better career choice. Why?  Because at the end of that first episode, America had fallen in love with Saturday Night Live, and more people watched the show after that and paid a great deal of attention to the second episode. In that world before the internet and social media existed, there was no particular way for Janis to commemorate her Saturday Night Live experience.

In recent years, Janis has spent less time working on her music career and more time focused on the foundation she started to honor the life of her mother, who returned to college late in her life and graduated, despite being stricken with multiple sclerosis.  The scholarship helps women like her mother pay for their college expenses, and Janis raises money year-round on a website dedicated to the Pearl Foundation https://thepearlfoundation.org/

Janis Ian's webpage:
https://www.janisian.com/
 

---

<< Prev

Next >>