Janis Ian - Society's Child

[Ian David]

Run time: 03:21 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW_rYLoIR08   Posted on YouTube: February 19, 2007 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: October 02, 2008 By DU Member: Ian David Views on DU: 285

 
Songfacts:

Janis was 13 when she began working on this, 14 when she finished. She started it while waiting outside the office of her guidance counselor, who was kind enough to call Janis in for consults every time she had a science class. After that, she wrote most of it on the school bus.

This song is about an interracial romance. Janis was living in an all-black neighborhood in East Orange, NJ, where she was one of 5 white kids in the school. She explains: "I saw it from both ends. I was seeing it from the end of all the civil rights stuff on the television and radio, of white parents being incensed when their daughters would date black men, and I saw it around me when black parents were worried about their sons or daughters dating white girls or boys. I don't think I knew where I was going when I started it, but when I hit the second line, 'face is clean and shining black as night,' it was obvious where the song was going."

Janis: "I don't think I made a conscious decision to have the girl cop out in the end, it just seemed like that would be the logical thing at my age, because how can you buck school and society and your parents, and make yourself an outcast forever."

Janis didn't write this about a particular person: "My parents were the complete opposite of the parents in the song. They wouldn't have cared if I married a Martian, as long as I was happy... I felt bad for my Dad because everyone assumed he was a racist."

This was about the 10th song Janis wrote. Her first was a song called "Hair Of Spun Gold," which was published in Broadside when she turned 13. Broadside was an underground magazine that published Folk songs by artists like Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger before they hit the mainstream. They invited her to sing it at one of their periodic shows they put on in Greenwich Village, where it got a huge reaction. Broadside kept asking Janis back, and "Society's Child" became one of the songs that became part of these performances.

More:
http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=2568


See also:

It’s just a song …
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=221x83030

[annabanana]

1. I haven't heard that song for years and years.

It was my song from 1967-70. .

[Rainbowreflect]

2. Cool, thanks for this blast from the past.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

3. I loved this song back then and it is still beautiful. I had a friend

who went to the HS of Music and Art in the Bronx with her. According to my friend, she was quite shy. Probably because of her fame.

[skiddlybop]

4. Good link to songfacts

and I would really stress the fact that it was made just like a girl-group record and produced by the Shangri-Las' producer Shadow Morton, who evoked the same vivid relationship drama in his productions like "Remember Walkin' in the Sand" and "Leader of the Pack."

It was a true fusion of two great American archetypes -- folk protest music and girl-group top 40.