In Case You Missed It

 

Janis Ian Featured on PBS.org

New Award Winning, Documentary

Varda Bar-Kar’s Janis Ian: Breaking Silence

Now Streaming on PBS’ American Masters

Also in Theaters and Video-On-Demand

Newly-Released Single, “One In A Million”

A Duet With Joan Baez, Out Now

In the mid-60s, Janis Ian, a teenage singer-songwriter from New Jersey, scores a controversial hit single called “Society’s Child,” about an interracial love relationship. The song launches her illustrious career but also ignites death threats, plunging her into an emotional tailspin – only to emerge from the ashes in the 1970s with an even bigger hit,”At Seventeen,” ahead of its time in confronting lookism and bullying. Janis overcomes significant obstacles – embezzlement, record industry misogyny, homophobia, and heartbreak – to find love and produce an indelible body of searingly honest songs that earned her a devoted following and critical acclaim.

Janis Ian: Breaking Silence features Janis Ian, friends, and collaborators, including Joan Baez, Lily Tomlin, Jean Smart, Laurie Metcalf, and Arlo Guthrie.

More information on the film on, go to: janisiandocumentary.com/screenings

 

Janis Ian’s never-released single, “One In A Million”

a duet with Joan Baez and an anthem for change just released.

Co-written by Ian and Jess Leary, Ian said “We decided to write an anthem. It felt like the world was getting stranger every day. People were scared, feeling hopeless. Writing ‘One In a Million’ made us feel hopeful. It reminded us that no matter how hard things got, we were not alone.

Single now available on all digital streaming providers, as well as a free download along with the sheet music on Janis’ website: janisian.com/.  

In Case You Missed It, read on PBS.org, HERE

   

How Janis Ian defied the music industry’s ageism

July 10, 2025 | Jim Farber

 

Four decades ago, Janis Ian had every reason to believe her career was over. She hadn’t scored a single significant hit since “At Seventeen” a full decade earlier, and her powerful record company, Columbia, refused to issue the album she had just spent two years recording. In the wake of that decision, the label unceremoniously dumped her even though she had four albums left on her contract. She was then 30, an age most people consider vital, but which most record companies consider positively Jurassic.

Had Ian given up at that moment, as every indicator said she should, music listeners would have lost three full decades of finely honed lyrics, highly mellifluous music and bold public moves. During that span, Ian released no fewer than ten studio albums, almost as many as she issued in the earlier, more widely celebrated period of her career. Six of those albums appeared on a label she founded herself, defiantly named Rude Girl Records. Simultaneously, she toured the world up until 2022, when she decided to end her music career on her own terms with a valedictory album, “The Light at the End of the Line.”

Ian’s refusal to give up back then took no shortage of personal faith and hard-won funding, creating a template that now looks downright visionary.

The indie route she helped pioneer in the late ‘90s paved the way for the mind-set that rules the current age in music. Today’s artists take for granted that they’ll have to build their own audiences and help fund their own work. When Ian did that, the path was fresh. She was equally ahead of the game when, over two decades ago, she realized that giving away some of your music through streaming could encourage more sales, not fewer, something the industry at the time resisted with every lawyer they could get their hands on.

Ian’s advanced moves were hardly confined to business and technology. They extended to her personal life, too.

In 1992, she was part of the first wave of mainstream pop stars to come out about their sexuality along with women like k.d. lang and Melissa Manchester, followed by a wave of men that included Elton John and George Michael. She titled the album she released at that time “Breaking Silence,” Ian’s first in seven years, representing the longest break between releases of her entire 55 year career. She was hardly idle in the time between. She busied herself writing songs in her new home of Nashville, including “Some People’s Lives,” which Bette Midler recorded for an album by that name in 1990 that became the biggest seller of her entire career.

It should surprise no one that songwriting helped pave Ian’s way back to performing. Her success in writing for others was established as far back as 1973, when Roberta Flack soared her song “Jesse” up the charts, buoyed by its placement on her smash album “Killing Me Softly.” One year later, Ian’s song “Stars” became an indelible part of Nina Simone’s live show, a placement later enshrined by its riveting use in the opening sequence of the 2015 documentary “What Happened, Miss Simone?” By the time Simone recorded the song, she and Ian had become close friends, though the relationship could be fraught, a nuance Ian chronicled in her pained salute to her titled “Nina,” which she included on her final album.  

Songwriting not only provided a lifeline for Ian in mid-career, it established her initial claim on history. For her self-titled debut album in 1967, Ian wrote all eleven songs, a nearly unprecedented move at the time. With that feat, she became one of the first fully autonomous female singer-songwriters, having released her debut one month before the inaugural release from Laura Nyro, as well as a full year before the debut of Joni Mitchell, and three years before the first set that featured Carole King as both a singer and songwriter. The subject matter of Ian’s songs also broke ground. Her 1966 single “Society’s Child” addressed an interracial romance at a time when miscegenation was still against the law. In 1974, her hit “At Seventeen” confronted the listener with the full emotional toll of strict beauty standards, introducing a subject that wouldn’t become a part of the mainstream pop conversation until the last decade, when it became nearly mandatory to talk about it.

While Ian hasn’t seen a song of hers affect the wider culture in such a dramatic way since, she has never flagged in creating songs that told the itchy truth. Her song “Breaking Silence” didn’t address her coming out but, instead, covered an even more vexing subject—incest, something Ian never experienced herself but which she captured in her song with both empathy and rage. Another track on that album, “His Hands,” addressed spousal abuse, something Ian has experienced, which she talks about in Janis Ian: Breaking Silence. The title track of her 2000 album “God and the FBI” chronicled her parents’ experience in being taped, monitored and harassed by the U.S. government for their progressive politics. Four years later, she set her song “Billie’s Bones” at the gravesite of a stranger in order to gain the long perspective only a contemplation of death can offer. It’s hard to imagine a younger songwriter penning something like that. Only those who’ve done a lot of living could do so, an unassailable advantage for any older songwriter.

For Ian, the toll of time even wound up telling her what to do with her career. Three years ago, she made the hard decision to announce her retirement from music, in part to devote more time to her other writing projects, which have included penning science fiction novels and writing a column, both endeavors that involve none of the hardships of life on the road. At age 74, Ian can expect many more healthy years to write in whatever form she pleases. But before she fully pulled back from the music side, she made sure to put a period on that part of her career with an album that had the same effect as the finale of a fireworks display: It shot off every explosion she had left, starting with the album’s opening salvo. In “I’m Still Standing,” Ian sang, “See these marks on my skin / They are the lyric of my life / Every story I begin / Just means another end’s in sight.”

She didn’t only sing about herself on the album but also about those who’ve followed her. In the title track, she directly addressed her fans: “You were there when I laughed / You were there when I cried / You were there as I tell you goodbye.”

The voice that delivered those lines showed more wear, and fell to a deeper register than the one that sang “At Seventeen.” But only a singer with that much experience could make those lines ring true. We were lucky this particular singer used that voice so often, so well and for so long.  

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer.

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About Janis Ian

Janis Ian is 10-time GRAMMY nominee (three-time winner) whose songs and performances have resonated with a diverse group of fans for more than six decades. She is one of just a handful of artists who have received nominations in eight completely different categories. Raised by activist Jewish parents on a New Jersey farm, she currently lives in Florida with her partner and wife of 36 years.  

Ian received her first GRAMMY nomination in 1967 for “Best Folk Album” with Janis Ian, featuring “Society’s Child.” She took home her first GRAMMY in 1975 for “Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female – At Seventeen,” and her second for “Best Spoken Word Album – Society’s Child: My Autobiography” in 2013. Her 2023 GRAMMY nomination for “Best Folk Album,” The Light at the End of the Line, brought her full circle.  

Never one to rest on her laurels, Ian continues to release new projects. In May 2025, the never-released single “One In A Million” performed by Ian and Joan Baez was made available. Co-written by Ian and Jess Leary, it is an anthem for change and a reminder that your dreams are still attainable, do not lose hope.

And in June, Janis Ian – From Me To You: Live In Bremen 2004 became available. The double-CD release is the first album of a full live-show in 47 years. For more information, please visit JanisIan.com.  

She is also making appearances to support the theatrical release of a documentary about her life and work. Janis Ian: Breaking Silence is helmed by award-winning director/producer Varda Bar-Kar, best known for Big Voice (Netflix, PBS) and Fandango at the Wall (Max). The film made its broadcast premiere on PBS’ famed American Masters in June 2025, features interviews with friends including Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie, Lily Tomlin, Jean Smart, Laurie Metcalf, and others.  

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