Janis Ian’s Never-Released Single, “One In A Million,” A Duet with Joan Baez and an Anthem for Change Released Today
Published
“At a time when it’s easy to lose hope, Joan and I want to remind people that our dreams are still attainable.
We are still united in the pursuit of good.
And each of us is just one of a million others who also refuse to give up.
So stay strong. You are not alone.”
– Janis Ian
Janis Ian’s Never-Released Single, “One In A Million,”
A Duet With Joan Baez And an Anthem For Change
Released Today
Award-Winning Documentary Film,
Janis Ian: Breaking Silence,
Now in Theaters and Streaming on Video-On-Demand
available now, at janisian.com/
Ian, who had already written, recorded and had become acclaimed for songs including “At Seventeen” and “Society’s Child,” and co-writer Jess Leary set out to write an anthem. “We decided to write an anthem,” Ian said. “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.” And what became was the rallying cry of “One In A Million.”
We are one, we are one in a million
We are one in a million strong
In my darkest night, I hold on to that light
We are one in a million strong
Sometime after the song was written, Ian and Baez were both on the line-up for an event called “Fight the Right” event in San Francisco, CA. Ian remembers, “when I found out Joan would also be appearing, I asked if she’d sing the song with me. Fortunately, Joan’s a quick study, because we only had time for one short run through. We sang it twice that night, with fellow musician Anthony Peterson helping out and the audience joining in as soon as they’d learned the chorus.”
A recording of a performance was recently uncovered, and is now available at all digital streaming platforms. Both artists decided to offer a free download and the sheet music on Janis’ website at janisian.com/.
The official music video also premiered today on YouTube, HERE youtu.be/
Below: a young Joan Baez standing at the bottom of Alabama’s capitol building with a line of policemen behind her.
The video opens with an image of Ian, circa 1966/67, singing and holding hands with the SNCC Freedom Singers and Barbara Dane at a rally in Chicago, and is followed by an image of a young Baez standing at the bottom of Alabama’s capitol building with a line of policemen behind her. More images accompany the song including stills of movements and people fighting back, from gay rights and civil rights to black power and suffragettes.
Ian encourages people to make their own videos and recordings. She notes “at a time when it’s easy to lose hope, we want to remind people that our dreams are still attainable. We are still united in the pursuit of good. And each of us is just one among a million others who refuse to give up.”
Ian became aware of Baez after first hearing her music at Camp Woodstock in Phoenicia, NY, where her father took a summer job as music director. She remembers, “I was surrounded by music and musicians; Pete Seeger was a regular visitor, Eric Weissberg was a counselor, and everyone was listening to Joan. I saved up my allowance to buy her first album, memorized each song, and learned to play guitar by playing along.
“Even at that age, watching Joan consistently stand up for what she believed in made me resolve that if I ever got the chance, I would do the same.”The two later met when Baez sought out Ian at the Newport Folk Festival. “I was a frightened 16-year-old entering a dining room full of hostile glares from people who thought I hadn’t paid my dues, because I was so young,” recalls Ian. “I was about to take my breakfast tray back to my room and hide when Joan tapped me on the shoulder and invited me to her family’s table.” She laughs, “no one glared at me after that!”
Throughout the years the two have remained friends, with Baez consulting Ian on songwriting and Ian consulting Baez on performance issues. Fans can see what Baez has to say about Ian, in the documentary Janis Ian: Breaking Silence, outnow in select theaters and available online to stream, rent, or buy before airing on PBS as part of its “American Masters” series beginning in June. Inspired by her GRAMMY Award Winning autobiography, Society’s Child: My Autobiography(2008), it also features Ian as well as friends and collaborators including Lily Tomlin, Jean Smart, Laurie Metcalf, and Arlo Guthrie.
The new film, Varda Bar-Kar’s Janis Ian: Breaking Silence, has critics and audiences finding it to be important, moving, and award worthy. Earning the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 35th Annual San Diego International Jewish Film Festival (SDIJFF), the film debuted as an Official Selection at DOC NYC in November 2024 and has also been named Best of Fest-Top Films at the 2025 Palm Springs International Film Festival. In features about Ian and the film, Rolling Stone proclaimed “Janis Ian is a living, breathing trailblazer. Let’s listen to her.” And Deadline stated “in addition to being one of the great songwriters of all-time, Ian is a captivating raconteur.”
This year, Ian also celebrates 50 years since the release of the GRAMMY Award-winning song “At Seventeen” and the GRAMMY Award-winning album it came from, Between the Lines, which was released on March 22, 1975, on Columbia Records. The song and album have received critical and peer acclaim. The Advocate said, “At Seventeen” is “the best song about growing up female ever written,” while The New York Times noted, “‘At Seventeen’ confronted lookism and bullying with a candor that anticipated the work of contemporary artists including Billie Eilish, Demi Lovato, and Lizzo.”
“It’s a piece of luck when you can hit on a universal theme like ‘At Seventeen,’” says Ian. “It’s what you strive for as a writer. I’m astonished that the song has lived this long, but I’m also horrified that ‘At Seventeen,’ and ‘Society’s Child,’ are both still so relevant. I would have hoped that by now so many things would be better.”
Although Ian is no longer touring due to the loss of her singing voice after she contracted a virus that left her with vocal fold scarring in 2022, she continues to remains a creative force in music and culture. Last fall, Ian began releasing music from her archives for the first time, including two albums –Live at the Calderone Theater 1975 and Worktapes & Demos Vol. 1– and the song “When He Was Here,” an aching ballad about divorce that she co-wrote with Lance Cowan in the ‘90s.Arriving in a few weeks is Janis Ian – From Me To You: Live In Bremen 2004. The double-CD release is the first album of a full live-show in 47 years, since Ian’s release of Remember… which features Ian with her band at Osaka Festival Hall in Japan and at the Sydney Opera House in Australia during her 1977 tours there. It will be available in Europe on May 30 and in the US on June 6; pre-orders are available now HERE (https://janisian.
More previously-unreleased music will continue to be released. To learn more, go to janisian.com
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