Credit: Far Out / Sony Music UK
Sun 18 October 2026 23:00, UK
By the time Janis Ian entered her teenage years, she was something of a prodigy.
The New Jersey-born Ian was raised on a farm, attending school in East Orange, New Jersey, and Manhattan. Her childhood was soundtracked by folk musicians, her favourites including Joan Baez and Odetta, and she began piano lessons from as early as two years old.
By the time she was a teenager, her talents had grown exponentially: she had been writing poetry since the age of eight, began singing and songwriting at 12, and could play the organ, harmonica, French horn and guitar. Her first song at 12 years old, ‘Hair of Spun Gold’, would stick with her, appearing on her eponymous debut album in 1967.
When she was 13, she legally changed her name from Janis Eddy Fink to Janis Ian, taking her brother Eric’s middle name as her new surname. The next year, in 1965, she would emerge with her first hit single, ‘Society’s Child (Baby I’ve Been Thinking)’, written about an interracial romance and the unjust cruelty that the couple faced from those around them.
“I don’t think I made a conscious decision to have the girl cop out in the end, it just seemed like that would be the logical thing at my age,” Ian later explained to Songfacts, “because how can you buck school and society and your parents, and make yourself an outcast forever?”
‘Society’s Child’ would be released three different times between the years 1965 and 1967, and became a national hit for Ian; she, in turn, became a teen star of her era. Around New York, Ian was embraced by the folk scene, performing at venues like the Village Gate and the Gaslight Cafe, while her debut album was beginning to take shape.
When her album Janis Ian was released in 1967, she was 15. The reactions to ‘Society’s Child’ were still following her – many of them being unwarranted vitriol against the young singer. Yes, the song earned her first instance of commercial success, but it also garnered her unfavourable attention from ignorant listeners intent on directing their scorn towards her. She would later recall an early concert – only her fourth or fifth time on stage, as she remembered – when, as she began to play ‘Society’s Child’, the crowd erupted into an uproar, a “horrible, almost prayer-like chant” of racial slurs.
Further reading: From The Vault
She ran off the stage in tears, only to be compelled to return; the hecklers, meanwhile, had been kicked out. “I made it my business to keep singing the song, get through the show,” she remembered, saying, “It was a life-changing moment for me. Because I realised for the first time that the song didn’t just have the power to make people angry, but it had the power to make people stand up, and stand up for what they believe… I think that was a large part of what set me on my course.”
Where Ian was on the receiving end of cruel mistreatment, she also began to garner a cult-like following, one that remained loyal in recognising the young musician’s talents. With the release of Janis Ian, her following grew after she received a surprising endorsement from none other than Leonard Bernstein.
Bernstein was the host of Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution, a CBS television special documentary, and he featured Ian and her performance of ‘Society’s Child’ in April 1967. The album went on to earn the teen a Grammy nomination, marking the beginnings of a vast – and largely underrated – career in music.
