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Echoes of Endurance and Evolution
By Dan Kimpel
Janis Ian can fan the fires of controversy, beginning with “Society’s
Child,” (recorded when she was 15 and released three times from 1965-
67) her song about an interracial teen romance. Decades later, writing
about the Internet in Performing Songwriter, she noted, “As to artists being
‘marginalized out of our business,’ the only people being marginalized out
are the employees of our Enron-minded record companies, who are being
fired in droves because the higher-ups are incompetent.”
With more lives than an indestructible cat, Ian, 61, is celebrating her fifth
decade as a songwriter and a recording artist with a Grammy nomination
in the Spoken Word category for her self-narrated title, Society’s Child: My
Autobiography, competing with Bill Clinton, Michelle Obama, Ellen Degeneres
and Rachel Maddow. “It sounds like the beginning of a joke,” laughs
Ian, “an ex-president, a first lady and three lesbians walk into a bar…”
Ian has called Nashville home since 1986. “It’s where the songwriters are.
The town has been good to me and good for me. They gave me a home
when no one else wanted me.”
Ian’s book illustrates fame, catastrophic illnesses, horrific business practices,
economic meltdowns and tangled relationships. Particularly telling is
how—despite massive hits like “At 17” and “Stars” and with songs recorded
by artists including Cher, Bette Midler and Roberta Flack (“Jesse”)—the
music industry dealt with her.
“I remember when it was business and not an industry,” says Ian. “With
all the demographics and number crunching we forget that the consumer is
what matters. Why is Taylor Swift doing so well? She’s changed the face
of music, songwriting and guitar playing for girls worldwide to astonishing
effect. There is an authenticity there.”
Ian grew up in New York and New Jersey with parents who were frequently
under FBI surveillance for their left wing politics. On her inaugural trip
to California, concert audiences in Encino greeted the creator of “Society's
Child”—her song about interracial dating—with chants of “Nigger-lover,”
while a radio station in Atlanta that dared to play the song was burned to
the ground.
Romantic dramas, and Ian’s coming out as a lesbian, are key components
in her book’s narrative as is her marriage to an abusive Portuguese filmmaker.
“It’s a sucking in process, but I had no experience in dealing with
that. The flip side was that he could be absolutely marvelous.”
To record the 10 CDs that comprise her autobiography, Ian went into the
closet, literally. “I sat in a tiny room with a guitar and a microphone, and
the book laid out in front of me so I could do two pages at a time. I was
conscious that since I didn’t have music as a prop it had to be the flavor of
the moment and the time of the book.” Throughout the narration, she drops
in pieces of songs to illustrate her dialogue. The artist, who will be traveling
to Los Angeles for the Grammy Awards, laments that she doesn’t have a
new release. She says it reminds her of the Internet article. “It’s so typical
that I would accidently have this huge article that is quoted in USA Today
and in The New York Times and I don’t have another album coming out.
The Grammy is like that. It’s my fate.”
She remains enthralled by the art of songwriting. “I have a song I’ve almost
finished called ‘The Dark Side of the Sun.’ It’s Lucifer talking about
how much he misses heaven. I think I’m on page 40. It has been draft
after draft to try to get three verses and a bridge to say exactly what I
need to say, no more or no less.” Ian continues, “The older you get, the
more different directions you can take it in. The more you know, the more
choices you have, and you’ve got to try a lot of them to find out what’s right
or wrong. It’s very frustrating; at this age and with this experience they
should just trip off of my tongue. I should be writing ‘Jesse’ and ‘At 17.’ But
that’s not how it works.”
Contact Jo-Ann Geffen, JAG Entertainment, 818-905-5511
30 February 2012 www.musicconnection.com