LOS ANGELES — It’s not often that a song written nearly six decades ago by a then teenager is as poignant, and with a message still so needed, as Janis Ian’s trailblazing “Society’s Child” about an interracial couple shunned by their parents and society is today.

The legendary songwriter, who was honored with a Lifetime Achievement award at the International Folk Music Awards earlier this year, celebrates the 56-year anniversary of her iconic television performance of the song on “Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution” that set her career ablaze and the 56th anniversary of the song debuting on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.

Ian conceived the idea for the controversial song, produced by George “Shadow” Morton, at age 12, wrote the track at age 13, and released it at age 14. The song, initially released with the title “Society’s Child (Baby I’ve Been Thinking),” was actually released three times between 1965 and 1968 —  in the midst of the Civil Rights movement — before becoming a national hit after Ian performed it on Leonard Bernstein’s CBS television special, “Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution” on April 25, 1967. The song, featured on Ian’s self-titled debut album on Verve Records and nominated for the Best Folk Performance (Album) GRAMMY Award in 1968, entered the Billboard 100 singles chart 56 years ago on May 27, 1967.

The song’s pathway to success started when a producer for the famed composer (best known for West Side Story and Peter Pan at the time) saw Ian perform “Society’s Child” at The Gaslight in Greenwich Village, New York City. Enamored by the artist and the song, she was booked to perform live on the televised music special.

“‘Society’s Child’ contains many of the musical joys we’ve talked about and some we haven’t. Like fascinating sounds, both natural and electronic, like a strange use of harpsichord and that cool, nasty electric organ. There are astonishing key changes and even tempo changes, ambiguous cadences and equal phrase lengths, the works,” said Bernstein in introducing Ian on the special.

Post-performance Bernstein continued to wax poetic on the artist, the song, and the performance. “It kills me. That sassy retort of the organ at the end. That voice, those words, that key change… You’re a great creature.” Of the importance of the song’s message he added, “What Janis has written is a short social document, not a satire, not a protest, but just a picture of a social trap. Of course, underneath it is the spirit of protest which underlies so many of these pop songs. The implication is, and strongly, that this is not at all the way things ought to be.

Watch the full appearance here: https://youtu.be/300LiZtuDPw

This performance of “Society’s Child” landed Ian on other national television shows, including “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” and “The Tonight Show,” as well as the opening act of one of the day’s most popular artists,  Donovan. The song was later inducted into the GRAMMY Hall of Fame, which honors recordings considered timeless and important to musical history, in 2002. It also spawned the name of Ian’s autobiography for which she received her second GRAMMY Award for “Society’s Child: My Autobiography” in 2013.

However, the success was a double-edged sword as it drew criticism for its progressive subject matter. “Society’s Child” was so incendiary that it not only got banned from several radio stations, but one Atlanta station was burned down for playing it on air. It also even led to death threats and public ridicule that scarred Ian until she finally untangled the trauma in therapy.

In explaining the impetus of the song, Ian, a white Jewish girl who grew up in a predominantly African American neighborhood in East Orange, New Jersey, told NPR, “I was on the bus one day and I saw a black and white couple. He was black. She was white. And they were obviously in love. And people on the bus were glaring at them, but they didn’t notice. They were just looking at each other and I started thinking, was this going to work?”

The thought of this young couple’s predicament marinated in Ian’s creative young mind. “The more I thought about it,” she continued, “the more I became convinced that it wouldn’t work ultimately. That she would cop out, that her parents and the school would just not allow it. And that’s the song I wrote, and I had no idea, when we recorded it, that it would ignite that kind of firestorm.”

At the time of the song’s release, some music critics were afraid to write about it because, as legend has it, a writer at a prominent newspaper at the time was fired for doing so. Today, however, critics revere the song as a revolutionary classic. AllMusic, for instance, writes, “A truly daring debut single, ‘Society’s Child’ was recorded almost a full year before it was released in mid-/late 1966. Musically, the song is a virtual mini-suite, complete with several distinct passages that incorporate pop, folk, and blues passages. Some positively bizarre modulations in the chord progressions show Janis Ian to be a songwriter of visionary exploration on the level of the Beatles.”

They continue, “With all of that, the lyrics match the music punch for punch. A powerful meditation of interracial romance, the song hit a nerve when it was finally released in 1966; it was indeed a daring inclusion on many radio playlists at the time, and it also generated an amazing amount of hate mail and even death threats to Verve Records. But in the end, the song made it into the Top 10 and created a persona as a ‘protest songwriter’ that, unfortunately, Ian was unable to unburden herself from until a decade later.”

Nearly 60 years later, we’re still having the same conversations about race, racism, love equality, LGBYQ+ rights, and social acceptance. “I’m astonished that the song has lived this long, but I’m also horrified that it is still so relevant. I would have hoped that by now so many things would be better,” says Ian.

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