“She may not perform ever again, and this documentary (as well as her 2008 autobiography, naturally titled Society’s Child) will have to stand as the definitive telling of her story, her arrival home. Janis Ian can retire with the knowledge that she not only made great music but changed lives.”
– Best Classic Bands

In Case You Missed It

Janis Ian: Breaking Silence

Film Reviewed by Best Classic Bands

New Award Winning, Documentary

Varda Bar-Kar’s Janis Ian: Breaking Silence

Now on PBS’ American Masters

Also in Theaters and Streaming 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 BestClassicBands.com, HERE     REVIEWS: FILMS/DVDS

Janis Ian Documentary ‘Breaking Silence’: Review

by Jeff Tamarkin

Janis Ian was sitting on a city bus observing a happy young couple—the boy was Black, the girl white—holding hands and minding their own business. She noticed that everyone else on the bus was also watching the two teens, albeit with disapproval in their eyes. The incident, which took place in the early 1960s, provided Ian with the kernel of a song idea. When she got home, she began sketching out the basic storyline of what would ultimately become her controversial first hit, “Society’s Child (Baby I’ve Been Thinking).”

Ian was 13 years old.

That recollection is one of many recounted in the documentary Janis Ian: Breaking Silence. Premiering in theaters on March 28, 2025, and coming to PBS on June 20, the film was directed by the London-born, Santa Monica-based Varda Bar-Kar. Over the course of nearly two hours, Bar-Kar, via archival footage and contemporary interviews with Ian and various associates (Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie, Lily Tomlin, etc.), creates a portrait of a fearless, resilient artist, now retired from singing due to a condition called vocal fold scarring.

From that debut single—which Ian (born Janis Fink, on April 7, 1951) completed at 14 and recorded for Verve Forecast Records at 15 (after being turned down by 22 other labels)—the promising young artist went on to write and record such classics of the singer-songwriter genre as “Stars,” “Jesse” (covered by Roberta Flack) and, most notably, “At Seventeen.” The latter, a #3 hit in 1975, won Ian a Grammy for Best Pop Female Vocal and has since been enshrined in the Grammy Hall of Fame. The road to that success, and following it, has never been an easy one for her.

Breaking Silence spends a significant chunk of time during the film’s first quarter unfolding the saga of “Society’s Child.” It begins with Ian’s appearance on a television special hosted by the brilliant conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein, who championed the teen’s song of interracial romance and her innate talent as singer, musician and composer. A product of the so-called folk boom of the early ’60s, Ian had grown up in rural New Jersey in a musical household and demonstrated an obsession with music from childhood. After her family moved to New York City, the girl was determined to pursue a career as a singer/songwriter. Described as “a poet, an actor” by arranger/composer/musician Artie Butler, she teamed up with record producer George “Shadow” Morton, whose previous success had come primarily from his work with the Shangri-Las, the girl group of “Leader of the Pack” fame. Although an unlikely choice on paper, Morton helped shepherd the song to fruition, matching Ian with simpatico musicians and coaxing a flawless performance from his young charge. She was soon on her way.

Even getting to that point was difficult, however. Warned that radio would never play a song about a Black and white couple, it was suggested by record executives that “Society’s Child” would find greater acceptance if only Ian would agree to replace the word “Black” with something less contentious. She refused, the song was released as is and, despite being banned by many stations, peaked at #14 nationally anyway.

That alone didn’t mean she’d have it easy. At one concert, Ian was faced with a hostile crowd, some of whom repeatedly shouted the derisive, divisive phrase “n—– lover” at her. Shaken to the core, Ian left the stage mid-song. But she then returned and finished the performance, this time rallying support from those in the audience who were not racists.

This, and many other scenes, is recreated deftly in the film using actors, but it’s the actual vintage footage of Ian at work, on television, onstage, that offers irrefutable proof that she was, and remained throughout her career, a gifted artist intent on moving forward and never compromising. There would be many more ups and downs, for sure: Outed relatively early in her career as a bisexual by a New York newspaper—at a time when such a revelation could prove fatal to a career—Ian dealt with it and soldiered on. There would be drugs and psychiatric issues, and a marriage to a man who turned abusive. There would be commercial slumps, the most pronounced occurring in the immediate aftermath of “Society’s Child.” It would be another eight years, and a switch to a new label, Columbia, before Janis Ian would taste success again.

But did she ever. Working with producer Brooks Arthur, whose belief in her was unflagging, Ian recorded the album Between the Lines. Released in July 1975, it contained a heartfelt anthem titled “At Seventeen” that took a deep, vivid look at the lives of young women—those whose beauty and popularity signaled bright futures and “ugly girls like me”: “I learned the truth at seventeen, that love was meant for beauty queens,” it began, each line spelling out the hypocrisies and dichotomies at play within the world of high school—ironic, perhaps because Ian herself had never finished her own schooling.

When male program directors failed to give the song airplay, Ian’s label came up with the ingenious idea of sending promo copies to their wives. Before long, “At Seventeen” was a top 5 single, while the album it came from reached #1.

There would be other slumps, despite the newfound success. Performing in Los Angeles one evening, Ian had a bad night, outshone by her opening act, an up-and-comer named Billy Joel. There would be problems with the IRS, too. But by the late ’80s, having relocated to Nashville, Ian rededicated herself to her craft and fell into a new groove, settling into the role of the seasoned veteran and creating some of the finest music of her career.

And finding love. In Nashville she met Pat Snyder and began a committed same-sex relationship, coming out publicly as a lesbian in the early ’90s. (They later married.) The 1993 album Breaking Silence, after which this documentary is named, marked the true beginning of Ian’s new role as an LGBTQ icon, and continued her lifelong insistence on openness and her fierce display of courage.

Because its subject is who she is, Janis Ian: Breaking Silence, the film, plays out as something greater than the standard “and then she recorded…” chronology of events. Ian, throughout, in her interview clips and her work, comes off as an engaging rascal of sorts. You can’t help but like her, and to root for her, while simultaneously marveling at her sheer talent and impenetrable braveness.

And that talent is always there, from the earliest days until the end of her singing career. Her final new studio album, 2022’s The Light at the End of the Line, is in a way a bookend to her self-titled debut, to Between the Lines and the rest. There’s never anything about Janis Ian that doesn’t seem real, and that, perhaps more than anything else, is what permeates this triumphant film.

At New York’s IFC Center theater, where a screening of the film took place the night before its wider opening, Ian participated in a Q&A session at its conclusion. Flanked by director Bar-Kar and DJ Greg Caz posing the questions, Ian spoke about her motivations and goals. Artists, she said, were always “searching for the way home.” She may not perform ever again, and this documentary (as well as her 2008 autobiography, naturally titled Society’s Child) will have to stand as the definitive telling of her story, her arrival home. Janis Ian can retire with the knowledge that she not only made great music but changed lives.

# # #

---

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.