Janis Ian was born Janis Eddy Fink. She was only 15 when she scored a hit record in 1967 with her depressing interracial love songΒ Society’s Child (Baby I’ve Been Thinking).
The song entered the US Top 40 on 17 June 1967 making #14Β but was banned by many radio stations as subversive (since the lyrics dealt with an interracial relationship forbidden by the white girl’s mother and frowned upon by her peers).
DJ s who broadcast the song ran the risk of being fired or attacked by outraged members of the public: indeed, one Louisiana DJ was allegedly murdered after playing it on air.
The song failed to provoke the same furore in Britain, where it was given a powerfulΒ Vanilla Fudge-style hard rock treatment byΒ Spooky Tooth.
Not wishing to rest on her teenage laurels Janis outdid herself in a big way, breaking #3Β in the US in 1975 withΒ At Seventeen, a self-loathing lounge song that tempted a whole generation of teenage girls to shove their heads into a trash compactor . . .
At SeventeenΒ relates how, at the age of 17, Ms Ian made the startling discovery that physically attractive people are more popular than unattractive people (at 18 she found out that gravity makes things fall).
It remains one of the few – if not only – anthems for gawky adolescent girls who spend evenings alone gazing at the phone hoping some boy will call them.
Amazingly, the songΒ failed to chart in the UK, despite a fair amount of radio exposure.
By the time she really was 17, Janis Ian was appearing on theΒ Tonight Show, being written up inΒ TimeΒ magazine and shopping for clothes withΒ Janis Joplin.