Janis Ian performed as the musical guest on the premiere episode of Saturday Night Live with a raging fever and strep throat.
“Everybody in the cast was very nervous because they’d never done live TV,” recalls Janis, who adds that performing live “was no big deal” to her. “I sang, I did my job, and then I left.”
A professional singer since the age of 14, Janis, 73, earned the biggest hit of her career, the bittersweet tale of teenage longing, “At Seventeen,” in 1975.
“I think all of us have something in us where we feel outside somehow,” says Varda Bar-Kar, director of a new documentary that examines the singer-songwriter’s life and contribution to popular music, Janis Ian: Breaking Silence. “When I was in high school, I listened to her album Between the Lines and I was just so moved.”
The documentary will hit theaters on March 28 and become available to stream on April 29.
Janis Ian Is Breaking Her Silence
Janis wrote and recorded her first hit “Society’s Child (Baby I’ve Been Thinking)” about an interracial romance at age 14. The song made her a star, but also a target of hate.
“I think stardom is a lot at any age,” reflects Janis, who continued to write fearless songs throughout her 60-year career. “It’s a constant struggle to better yourself,” she says, “to be a better artist, to be a better human being, to live up to your talent.”
Despite the topicality of her music, Janis has never thought of herself as a “protest singer” — or even as just a singer-songwriter. In the early 1980s, she took a nine-year break from recording to study acting. She has written science fiction novels too. Music, however, remains her primary creative language.
“It crosses culture,” Janis says. “It crosses race, ethnicity, language, country — all the things that divide us are the things that music unites us with. To me, music is the great unifier.”