I was sitting around the other night with some friends, when somehow the subject of the Spice Girls came up. What were the chances, I wondered aloud, that any of these prefab pop tomatoes would ever break from their bindings and become full-fledged songwriters, masters of their own destinies? There were a few bets laid on Mel B, though the antes were small. Then the conversation turned to her younger, towheaded sisters — the Christinas, Britneys, Mandys and Jessicas. In their cases, the wagering ceased. Sure, back in the day, young pop stars like Janis Ian and Marianne Faithfull managed to do it. But even back then, they were anomalies and, besides, none of today's blond crop are their own creations — and none of them, as I keep telling my startstruck nieces, write their own material.
"If you want to be a writer, it's a whole other goal from being a star," says Ian, whose 1965 song "Society's Child" propelled her into controversy, and onto the pop charts, at age 15. "And you have to be willing to give up the one when it's interfering with the other. I think most of these kids are too young to even know that. I was really the exception to the rule. Me and Stevie Wonder were the only two kids writing." Ian, now 50, is very much a creature of her own design. Raised on a chicken farm in New Jersey by politically aware — though not outwardly activist — parents, Janis Eddy Fink started piano lessons before she was 3, but quit at 10 to teach herself the guitar. She was 14 when she wrote and recorded "Society's Child." Though the sad tale of interracial dating was banned by radio stations nationwide, composer Leonard Bernstein championed Ian and her song, featuring her on a TV special. From there, it was on to Time, Newsweek and the New York Times.
"Society's Child" eventually reached the Top 20, and Ian found herself jamming with Hendrix and shopping for Grammy outfits with Joplin, who used to send young Ian home from parties where drugs were being used. "People really watched out for me," she recalls. "I think I was kind of the club mascot. I wasn't really a threat to them because I was so young, and everybody liked my talent. I mean, everybody was a kid then, and I think the big kids kind of adopted me."
Ian attended the New York High School of Music and Art for a year, but dropped out of school altogether in the 10th grade. "(Youth) already makes it hard to be yourself," she admits. Ian made three more albums for Verve, giving away much of the money she earned to friends and to charities. Her composition "Jesse" became a hit for Roberta Flack. In 1975, at 24, she scored her biggest success with "At Seventeen," a meditative song that became a touchstone for millions of adolescent outsiders and ugly ducklings. Shortly after that, she was publicly outed in The Village Voice by a journalist who had just done the same to David Bowie and Elton John.
"I thought they were doing it for all the wrong reasons," says Ian. "But given that, I obviously didn't want anybody to think I was ashamed in any way. … I have a problem with people outing people. I think it's wrong to take someone's destiny in your own hands."
There's been some serious hardship in Ian's life, including an abusive, five-year marriage, and losing everything she had to the IRS. This, combined with the subject matter of her best-known tunes, might make you think that Ian would come across as a dour folkie. But her wit has been showcased, not just in her wry and cliche-free lyrics, but also in a monthly column she wrote for The Advocate, and another she currently contributes to Performing Songwriter. She certainly doesn't take herself too seriously, laughing at the idea of having artistic descendants. "How embarrassing," she says. "Then, if you don't like their work — oh, no, no, no. Let Joni Mitchell have 'em."
For her latest release, 2000's God & the FBI (Windham Hill), Ian holed up in a house for three months in Los Angeles with three co-conspirators. It's laden with slow, sweet numbers about spirituality, art and love, but spiked with humor where it counts. "Jolene" is a stunner, a portrait of a larger-than-life heroine, a party girl who can handle anything. The narrative begins and ends with a whispered doo-wop refrain; in between, it unfolds over a rockin' beat and a lumbering bass line played by Ian.
"Boots Like Emmy-Lou's" is just fun, with the now-Nashville-based Ian pining for hair like Loretta Lynn's, boots like Emmylou Harris' and a thousand Cadillacs with longhorns on the front. The song rolls along over honky-tonk piano and a hayseed shuffle from Heaven. "You Play Like a Girl" is catchy anthem-rock, an ironic fist-pumper that opens up with a Stonesy riff, and tells of Ian's unsuccessful auditions for rock bands at the age of 13. "Girls give birth and stuff," the song goes, "But they're not really tough enough." And though the song is obvious revenge therapy for Ian, her career, which has included Grammys for everything from kids' albums to jazz duets with Mel Torme, is vengeance enough — especially since none of those bands became famous.
"Shortsighted people usually don't," chuckles Ian.
But the central theme of the album is found in the title track, whose funky, lyrical cadence takes after Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues," and refers to the FBI's surveillance of Ian's family since before she was even born. Her music teacher/chicken farmer father attended a meeting on local egg prices once; Ian's mother went to meetings of the Civil Rights Congress; the family was also Jewish. These combined, Ian later learned upon receiving the family's FBI files under the Freedom of Information Act, was enough, in the 1950s, to warrant constant watching.
Feds keeping an eye out was something Ian's family got used to, even joked about. But it was also enough to cause the Bureau to prevent her father from ever receiving tenure at the schools where he taught, despite protests and petitions. Ian has written that she felt special growing up, because the government was watching her. She's also written that there was surprisingly little in the files about her, which made her oddly disappointed.
But she's not afraid of baring her soul now. Besides, the head of the East Coast FBI came to one of her shows in New York and gave her an FBI sweatshirt. "You know, it's a different FBI now," says Ian, "and hopefully there's not signs of (J. Edgar Hoover) everywhere, and everybody's not running so scared." Surely, though, the way she's unburdened herself in public for 35 years now — in her writing, songs, and on her extensive Web site — is a result of that early invasion of privacy?
"No," Ian insists, "I think it probably has more to do with being gay, and then making the decision that it was something I wasn't going to spend my life hiding. Because once you realize how good it feels to not have any secrets, you sort of stick to that. You keep going back for more."
This article appears in May 10-16, 2001.