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- I've managed to find
a marvelous song called

"Society's Child", written,
astonishingly enough,

by a 15-year-old girl
named Janis Ian.

This tune is very well known

among the followers
of pop music,

but you may not have heard
it, since it's been withheld

by most of the radio stations,
for reasons unknown to me,

although probably having to
do with its subject matter,

which is, as you'll see,
somewhat controversial.

Listen hard to
"Society's Child".

(Harpsichord intro to
"Society's Child" plays)

♪ Come to my door, baby ♪

♪ Face is clean and
shining black as night ♪

♪ My mother went to answer ♪

♪ You know that you
looked so fine ♪

♪ Now I could understand
your tears and your shame ♪

♪ She called you boy,
instead of your name ♪

♪ When she wouldn't let
you inside ♪

♪ When she turned and said,
but honey, he's not our kind ♪

(gentle piano music)

- [Crew Member] This is
Janis piano, take one.

(tablet bleeps)

- [Camera Operator] Got it.

(piano music continues)

(Janis breathes deeply)

- [Janis] When I started
out, I wanted to be a Beatle.

I wanted to be really famous.

I wanted to be the person that
couldn't walk down the street

'cause everybody would stop
me and ask for my autograph.

- [Interviewer] What do you
consider yourself, Janis?

- [Janis] Just a singer.

- Singer?
- Yeah.

- [Interviewer] Of any
particular notoriety?

- [Janis] (chuckles)
Infamously, yes.

I mean, it's an unreal thing

to have a hit record in
the first place.

And it's even more unreal
to have a hit record

where everybody runs around
saying you're the new
Bob Dylan,

the new Messiah, yada yada.

- [Leonard Bernstein]
I congratulate you
on what I'm sure

is going to be a brilliant
career.

- Thank you.

- Thank you so much for coming
to see us.

- [Janis] Forget about
glory, because that fades.

(applause)

- [Janis] Being an artist,
it's about service.

It's about feeling like
you are part

of something bigger
than yourself.

Music is about telling stories.

This is mine.

(Janis chuckles)

(chickens cluck)

- [Janis] I grew up in
New Jersey in Farmingdale.

My dad and my mom ran
a chicken farm.

It was pretty isolated.

The nearest neighbor was
over a mile away.

But there was always music
in our house.

(Piano playing:
Debussy's "Clair De Lune")

- [Janis] I think like many
Jewish immigrant homes,

that was a way of connecting.

My father played the piano,
and one day,

when I was about two
and a half,

I realized that he was
making those sounds.

So, I went to him and I said,

"I need to learn how
to do that."

And he laughed and said,
Well, I'd have to be able

to tell time and know
the alphabet.

So, I went into the kitchen
and said to my mother,

"I need to tell time
and know the alphabet,

and I need it as quickly
as possible."

The next day, I marched
back to my father and said,

"I can tell time, I know
the alphabet. Teach me."

And he started to teach me
and (laughs)

I think from the first,
we argued.

(upbeat piano duet:
"Heart And Soul")

- [Janis] My father ran an
integrated

chicken vaccination crew,

which you would not think
was a big deal,

but it was a big deal.

He also was active in the
civil rights movement,

and one day, my father went
to a meeting of egg farmers

about the price of eggs

and he was picked up by
the FBI on his way home.

(engine revs)
(siren wails)

- [Celia] That was the era
of McCarthyism.

They were accusing people
of always being communists.

McCarthy tried to make
himself a hero

by taking other people down,

and Janis's father got sort
of caught up in that mess.

- [Janis] Several times, the
FBI showed up at our door

and demanded entry, and my
father asked for a warrant.

They said they had none, and
he slammed the door on them.

My dad later became
a music teacher,

but he could never get tenure
because the FBI would show up

wherever we went and
then inform the principal

that he had consorted
with known communists.

- [Arlo Guthrie] When Janis
and I were starting out,

the world was different.

I remember a time when,
in the fourth grade,

the teacher said, "Now, class,

when you see
the mushroom cloud,

be sure to get under
the desk immediately."

- [Announcer] First, you
duck, and then you cover,

and very tightly, you cover
the back of your neck.

- [Guthrie] They had
brought us to the brink,

during the Cuban Missile
Crisis, of nuclear catastrophe.

The world that they had created

didn't make any sense anymore.

And the thought was, "Okay,
we tried it their way.

It didn't work. There must
be something else to try."

(Bob Dylan, "The Times
They Are a-Changin'")

♪ If your time to you is
worth saving ♪

♪ Then you'd better start
swimming ♪

♪ Or you'll sink like a stone ♪

♪ For the times,
they are a-changing ♪

- [Guthrie] During
the '60s, all

the new artists who
were arriving

hoped that in some way they
could establish an economy

and a culture and a country
and a justice system

that was more equitable,
more fair.

And Janis and I and others
came up, at that time, as kids.

(audience cheers and applauds)

(radio interference)

- [Radio Host] It gives
me a lot more than the-

- [Janis] In those days,
when you only had

half a dozen radio channels,

there was one folk radio
show in Newark, New Jersey,

once a week, for an hour.

I would crawl under the covers
and hide and listen to it,

and that's how I heard
Phil Ochs,

Tom Paxton, Buffy Sainte-Marie,

all of these people that I
later became friends with.

(water splashes)

(Odetta sings on radio)
♪ Tall as a mountain ♪

- [Janis] I was in the shower
and I heard this voice.

I had grown up on jazz and
classical music and folk music,

but I'd never heard
a voice like this.

I went racing out of the shower

with a towel draped around me,
yelling,

"Who is that, who is that,
who is that?"

And my mother was watching
Harry Belafonte's show

and Odetta was singing.

And that changed my life.

In the same year I
discovered Odetta,

I picked up my dad's guitar
and decided I wanted to play.

I was in camp, Camp Woodland,
at the time.

(Pete Seeger) ♪ What did you
see, my darlin' young one ♪

- [Janis] (chuckles) My
friend, Janey, calls them

"The Commie Pinko Red Diaper
Baby Camps",

but they weren't, really,
they were more peace and love,

Woodstock camps.

- [Janey Street] I met Janis
when we were like 12 years old,

at summer camp.

It was very progressive,
you know, it's integrated,

and you learn folk songs.

I had a blues band (chuckles)
and Janis was writing songs.

And we were the only
two girls that we knew,

this was in the '60s,

the only two girls that we knew
that played guitar and sang.

- [Janis] I stole my
dad's Leadbelly songbook,

I learned the chords from that.

Then I started imitating
Odetta, which was terrible.

And then I started imitating
Joan Baez,

which was even worse.

And then eventually, I started
trying to become myself.

- [Street] She was already
writing stuff

like "Hair of Spun Gold."

I remember that was one
real early one.

- [Janis] ♪ When I was
just the age of five ♪

♪ My world had just
come alive ♪

- [Janis] I was listening to
a fair amount

of old English ballads,

because that's what I was
learning at camp

and I found this way to
play an A minor chord,

way high up on the neck
of the guitar,

and the song just started
to come.

♪ With hair of spun gold ♪

♪ Lips of ruby red ♪

♪ And eyes as deep as
the deepest sea ♪

- [Janis] I wrote out
the lead sheet,

with the vocal line and
the chords

and I sent it into
Broadside Magazine,

and then Broadside Magazine
decided to publish it,

not knowing how old I was.

It was a very big deal to be
in Broadside.

They were the first ones to
publish Dylan,

first ones to publish
Phil Ochs,

first ones, for what it's
worth, to publish me.

(phone rings)

They called the house, and
they talked to my father.

They said, "Well, we
would like her to come

and perform at the Village
Gate at a hootenanny."

And my father sputtered,
from what I understand,

and he said, "Do you
know that she's only 13?"

And Sis Cunningham from
Broadside said, "Well,
that's okay.

Then can you drive her?"

(car door slams)

- [Tom Paxton] We had a
hootenanny once a month

on a Sunday afternoon at
the Village Gate.

The Village Gate was the
biggest venue in the village.

- [Janis] I got there
and saw all these people

that I'd only heard on the
radio or seen on album jackets.

People like Phil Ochs,
Eric Anderson, Tom Paxton.

This was my first
chance to sing

in front of the paying
audience.

- [Paxton] We didn't know
who she was.

She was this little kid from
New Jersey

and her guitar was as big
as she was.

(audience cheers and applauds)

(gentle acoustic guitar music)

- [Janis] Hey, come on. I'm
getting hung up on this chord.

(waitress laughs)

- [Paxton] She got up and she
sang a song

that was so full of sass

that Len and I were banging
on the chair saying,

"Great, great."

- [Janis] I sang my song
and then I turned around

and went back to my seat
'cause I was very worried about

using up too much time, I
had been warned about that.

People kept applauding and
Paxton said,

"Get back up there,
kid! Go on, you idiot!"

- [Paxton] In the hootenannies,
you didn't do an encore.

But we made her get up
and go sing another song,

'cause we loved her.

She was one of us.

Still is.

- [Janis] After the show, my
mom went to my grandparents

and asked them to loan my
parents the money to buy me

my first own guitar 'cause
I'd always played my dad's.

And I got that for my
13th birthday.

And that was just huge.

I mean,
I suddenly had a way out.

I wanted into the big city.

I wanted to go to New
York and make my fortune.

So, when we moved to New York,

I took it for all it was worth.

(Janis Ian, "Month of May")

♪ Lazy with the sun ♪

♪ Crazy with love ♪

We moved when I was 14 and
I remember the first night

I walked up to Broadway,
a block away,

and I sat on an orange crate
and I felt this rumbling

under my feet and I realized
the trains ran all night long.

Janey and I would take
the subway,

we'd go down to the
village on the weekends.

You could go from seeing
B.B. King at the Au Go-Go,

to Bob Dylan hanging out
at the Kettle of Fish,

to the Gaslight and
Reverend Gary Davis.

You could do all of that
in one night.

And if you were an artist,
you got to get in free.

So, you got an education in
all of these different genres.

- [Guthrie] There was
a short period of time

where it seemed as though
we were all influencing

and playing off of each other
and learning from each other

and sharing with each other
and having fun

and goofing off and getting
in trouble together.

It was a wonderful time.

(acoustic guitar)

(Gary Davis,
"12 Gates to the City")

♪ Oh, what a beautiful city ♪

- [Anthony DeCurtis]
In Greenwich Village,

there was a very active
club scene.

This kind of folk revival,
I suppose,

is what people were calling it.

Janis was a part of that world.

♪ 12 gates to the city ♪

- [Janis] I got to open for
the Reverend Gary Davis.

Gary's wife, Miss Annie,
she liked me a lot,

so she told Gary he ought
to teach me.

Gary took me under his wing,
and he took me to the Gaslight

and he wanted me to
open for him.

You can imagine this
audience of people

coming to hear an old
blind black blues singer

and here's this 13-and-a-half,

or 14-year-old white girl from
New Jersey.

(laughs) They must've
been appalled.

(Janis Ian, "Lonely One"]

♪ You make me feel I'm
the only one ♪

♪ To know that you're
not real ♪

♪ Lonely one ♪

♪ Turned down thumbs on
the world ♪

(audience cheers and applauds)

- [Joan Baez] To be
acknowledged by Broadside

and then go to the Gaslight,
I mean, it's sort of

what one did on the
road to being discovered

and appreciated.

- [Janis] After my show, this
guy came running backstage,

Jacob Solomon,
and he started yelling,

"Kid, I'm gonna make
you a star!"

And I said,
"You and what army?"

And he said, "No, no,
no, no, no."

And he pulled out a
business card and he said,

"Meet me tomorrow at
this address",

which turned out to be Shadow's
office in Columbus Circle.

- [DeCurtis] Shadow
Morton was not necessarily

the likeliest producer
for folk songs.

Shadow Morton produced
the Shangri-Las.

♪ They say he came from
the wrong side of town ♪

♪ What you mean when
you say that he came ♪

♪ From the wrong side of town ♪

- [DeCurtis] He was into drama.

- [Artie Butler] Shadow
was a good name for him.

He used to wear a cloak.

If he just stood next to
the coat rack,

we didn't know he was
in the office.

- [Brooks Arthur] He
would disappear.

- [Artie] He would just
disappear. He'd become vapor.

- [Janis] He had his
cowboy boots on the table

and he had the New York Times
propped up in front of him,

and he was smoking a
cigarette with his fedora.

So, I started to sing, and
he kept the newspaper up.

(Janis Ian, "Month of May.")

♪ sometimes get lonely ♪

♪ when you turn out the light ♪

- [Janis] And I thought,
"That's incredibly rude.

Here I am,
pouring my heart out,

trying very hard to be good,
and here's this guy reading."
♪ In the month of May." ♪

So, at the end of the
second or third song,

I put my guitar away
and closed up the case

and then I pulled out my
cigarette lighter

and I set fire to his
newspaper,

then I went to the elevator.

Shadow had managed to
put out the fire

and stuck his boot in
the elevator and said,

"Wait, wait, wait!"

I don't think he'd
realized how young I was.

He apologized and he asked
me to come back and sing,

and I said, "Why should I?"

And he was just really
adorable about it.

So, I went back and I sang.

I probably sang him
the six songs,

or 12 songs I had
written to date.

He said, "That one," when
he heard "Society's Child".

And I said, "Okay, what?"

And he said,
"We'll go into the studio."

I said, "Okay."

He asked if I needed anything
for this session in the studio

and I thought really fast that
I would never get a chance

to play a harpsichord or a
12-string, so I asked for both.

And he asked why I needed
the harpsichord,

and I said,
"For the introduction."

And he said, "Okay."

And then I had to go home
and write the introduction.

- [Herb Jordan] "Society's
Child" is a great song.

You have this young girl,

with a guitar,

taking on the beast,
interracial relationships.

(bus engine hums)

- [Janis] I was sitting
on a bus

in East Orange, New Jersey.

I was 14 and I was one of,
I think, four, maybe five

Caucasian kids in an all-Black
school and neighborhood.

A very middle class, very
upwardly mobile neighborhood.

But still,
I was definitely the outsider.

I was on the bus,
watching a young couple.

He was black and she was
white and they were young

and they were holding hands
and they were just oblivious

to the way people were
glaring at them.

Not just white people. I mean,
everyone was glaring at them.

And I started thinking about
how hard that was going to be

and wondering whether
their parents even knew

that they were dating, and
if their parents didn't know,

whether anybody on the bus
was going to tell on them.

I wondered whether the girl

would be able to take
the pressure.

And in the end, I thought
she probably wouldn't.

(moody harpsichord music)

- [Artie] I mean, that first
session when she walked in,

and I'm looking at
this little girl.

I mean, honestly,
I can say little...

She was the size of a
hood ornament on a Chevy.

(Brooks laughs)

I mean,
she was a tiny little girl.

To think "Society's Child"

came out of a young
girl like that.

- [Brooks] 14, 15 years old.

- [Artie] Wow.

She'd never been to

a recording studio before.

And she brought me
a piece of paper,

eight and a half by eleven,

with her lyrics,
with the chord changes,

written right above them.

And she thought that was
sufficient to pass out to
the band.

- [Janis] I didn't know
how to talk to musicians,

'cause I only knew how
to talk to folk players,

and that was a whole
other world.

I just thought that everybody
was going to learn it,

like we did in camp.

And then we started playing
and it was just horrible

and my stomach was
starting to hurt,

and I didn't know what to do.

And Shadow, who had left
me alone in the studio

with these musicians, came
in and asked what was wrong,

and I told him that it
sounded horrible.

And God bless him, George
Duvivier came over,

and he called the band
together and he said,

"Gentlemen,
just listen to the song once.

Listen to the words."

♪ Walk me down to
school, baby ♪

♪ Everybody's acting deaf
and blind ♪

♪ Until they turn and say ♪

♪ Why don't you stick to
your own kind ♪

♪ My teachers all laugh,
their smirking stares ♪

♪ Cutting deep down in
our affairs ♪

♪ Preachers of equality
think they believe it ♪

♪ Why won't they just
let us be ♪

- [Artie] When she sang
the song for us,

we had to recuperate
for a few minutes.

Out of her fingers,
out of her mouth.

She was connected.

She was a poet.

She was an actor when
she sang too,

because she got inside the
lyric and you felt the pain.

♪ One of these days I'm
gonna raise ♪

♪ My glistening wings and fly ♪

- [Brooks] Being in the control
room when that moment was

happening, man,

I felt like it was a privilege
to be behind the board

handling all the sounds and
all the instruments, you know?

- [Artie] We learned a
lot from this little girl.

- [Janis] They listened and
then they talked to each other,

and they worked out an
arrangement,

and Artie Butler ran back and
forth from the harpsichord

to the organ, playing my intro.

- [Artie] I sat on one of
those chairs with three wheels,

you know,
like a secretary sits on?

- [Brooks] Yeah, yeah.

- [Artie] And we greased the
wheels so they didn't squeak.

I should've gotten paid
mileage. I would've made
more money.

(lively organ music)

- [Janis] Artie played that
amazing rip

at the end on the organ,

as a kind of counterpunch
to the lyric,

and it was perfect
the first take.

- [Artie] She made a
record that is true art.

It's foresight.

It's foresight about what
the world should be like.

- [Janis] After this
session in the studio,

Shadow took me outside
and he said,

"You don't have to do this, but
if you change this one line,

'Shining black as night'
to any other line,

you can change it to whatever
you want,

'Shining like the moon',
'Shining like a fight',

whatever you want,
just not 'Black'.

If you change that line,

I will guarantee you a number
one record."

Folk music has a tradition
of standing up.

You stand up and you
make your beliefs known

and that's how I was raised

and that's the people I was
raised among.

Those were the people
I admired.

So, I said, "No."

- [Joan Baez] For me and for
Janis, you took the things

that you really believed
in and cared about

and you stuck to that
and you wrote the songs,

you sang the songs around that.

She wasn't gonna change
words for somebody else.

- [Janis] I got to make
a record.

I got to hold my head up in
front of people like Odetta

and Dave Van Ronk that
I admired so enormously,

and I was going to get to
make an album.

That was the big deal.

- [Jordan] She took on
forces that she probably

didn't even understand.

And that's one of the great
things about being young.

Maybe it's only a child who
could sing a song like this.

Only a child is fearless enough

to take on something so dark.

The right to love who you
choose, to me,

is like the most
fundamental right there is.

(gentle piano music)

- [Janis] More than half
my first album budget

went on "Society's Child".

The goal was to get on
the radio and have a hit,

but when Shadow brought
the finished record

to Atlantic Records,
who had paid for it,

they said they couldn't
release it,

and gave Shadow the master
and said, "Good luck."

- [Greg Caz] It was in
the middle

of the civil rights movement,

just literally a handful
of years

removed from separate water
fountains and Jim Crow.

And that's where
"Society's Child" came in.

I don't think that she intended
to become

like a symbol of social change.

She was writing about
what she knew.

- [George Wallace] And I say
segregation now, segregation

tomorrow and segregation
forever!

(audience cheers)

- [Muhammad Ali] No
intelligent white person

watching this show,

or no intelligent white man,
in his or her right white mind,

want black boys and black
girls marrying their white sons

and daughters, and in return
introducing their grandchildren

as half-brown,
kinky-haired black people.

- [Janis] Shadow brought
"Society's Child" to 22

of the labels that were in
New York then,

and every single one
of them turned it down.

It was just too dangerous.

- [Herb Jordan] It could cost
you your life to express love

to the wrong person.

You know,
the song was an act of courage.

- [Janis] Finally,
Verve Forecast

released "Society's Child",
and it got great reviews

from places like
the Gavin Report,

but Gavin closed his
very stellar review with,

"Too bad it'll never
see the light of day."

- [Artie] The record
company was afraid of it,

the radio stations were
afraid of playing it.

All the odds were stacked
against her with this song.

- [Janis] Robert Shelton
from the New York Times

had heard the record and he
had called David Oppenheim,

who was Bernstein's
close friend,

and David took it to Bernstein
and said,

"Let's have her on the show
we're doing about pop music."

And Bernstein said,
"Let's do better.

Let's give her a whole
segment."

(lively organ music)

- [Leonard Bernstein]
It kills me.

That sassy retort of the organ
at the end,

that voice, those words,
and that key change.

♪ But for now that is the
way they must remain ♪

♪ I say I can't see you
anymore ♪

- [Janey Street] I don't know
if you know

what the Leonard Bernstein
show was,

but he's the guy that wrote
all the music

in "West Side Story",
and he's a brilliant man,

and it was like being
on the Ed Sullivan Show.

- [Bernstein] Oh, Janis, how
did you ever write such a thing

at the age of 15?

You're a great creature.

- Thank you.

- [Lily Tomlin] That
was an embrace of God.

And that just catapulted
"Society's Child".

- [Street] It just took
off, and then she took off.

- [Studs Terkel] "I can't
see you anymore, baby.

I won't see you anymore, baby."

Today, the singer,
the composer, Janis Ian,
is our guest.

The song is "Society's Child".

This is perhaps one of the most
censored,

I think, of all records.

- [Janis] Well,
it's a dirty song.

- [Studs] Why was it
considered a dirty song?

- [Janis] 'Cause it talks
about Blacks and Whites,

and people don't like hearing
that, because it scares them.

- [Officer] This march will
not continue.

(protestors scream)

- [Herb Jordan] What she
sang about in 1966 and 1967

still exists.

People measure their words.

People are very careful
about what they say,

but it still exists.

- [Tomlin] It was a very
strong, emphatic

social commentary.

(gun fires)

- [Studs Terkel] We live
in a kind of world where

when you want to shout and
you want to talk about it,

we'll say, "Shh, now cut
it out, you're dangerous."

You're not really a threat.

Somewhere they were saying,

"you're attacking the older
generation."

- [Janis] I'm not attacking
anybody, except hypocrites.

- [Joan Baez] It would
bother the progressives,

'cause it wasn't
progressive enough for them,

and it would bother the
racists to talk about,

you know, integration,
basically.

Well, I would say
congratulations.

If you get both sides
nipping at your heels,

you know you're doing
something right.

- [Brooks] Some of the
club owners wouldn't even

let her get onstage,

for fear of what might happen.

- [Artie] I did not know that.
How sad.

- [Janis] "Society's
Child" was the first song

to come along to incite
national anger.

I was suddenly dealing
with things like,

do I go onstage when I know
that someone has sent in

a bomb threat to the theater?

- [Greg Caz] Anybody who
wrote that song at that time

was always gonna run into
some problems.

♪ Don't let it bother you ♪

- [Janis] By the time I
hit Encino,

it was probably my fourth or
fifth time on a concert stage,

and I sang my first four or
five songs.

(audience applauds)

♪ Come to my door, baby ♪

♪ Face is clean and
shining black as night ♪

♪ My mother went to answer ♪

♪ You know that you
looked so fine ♪

When I started
"Society's Child",

these people started yelling.

And I thought that they
were yelling something nice,

'cause onstage,
you can't really hear

what people are yelling
very clearly.

But I realized that they
were all yelling

"Nigger lover" at me.

I didn't know if it was 10
or 20 people,

or if it was the majority
of the audience.

It became this horrible,
almost prayer-like chant.

"Nigger lover, nigger
lover. Beat, beat, beat, mm.

Nigger lover, nigger lover.
Beat, beat, beat, mm."

Nobody in the audience
knew what to do.

I tried to keep singing and I
tried to keep my wits about me

but they got louder and louder.

(audience jeers)
(heartbeat thumps)

And I knew that I was
gonna start to cry, and I,

I didn't want them to
see me cry.

So, I put down my guitar
on the stage,

and I walked off stage and
I went to the restroom.

(footsteps running)

And I started to cry.

I just didn't know what
I was supposed to do.

(Janis sobs)

The promoter came in.
(Janis chuckles)

And he had been in
the box office.

He had no idea what had
happened.

So, he asked me what I was
doing offstage.

And I said, "Well, they
were calling me a name."

I couldn't even say the words.

I had been so raised not to
use that word.

And he asked me what they
were calling me and I told him

and he looked at me
and he said,

"Well, you don't leave
the stage

because somebody called
you a name."

People were getting shot.
People were getting knifed.

People were disappearing.

Freedom Riders were
getting killed

It was civil war and I didn't
want to die.

I really did not want to die.

We argued for quite a while
and it felt like years.

And he finally said
something like,

"I can't believe the girl who
wrote that song is a coward."

And I thought about that for
a really long time because

I had been raised to be
a Maccabee.

My family came from Russia so
that I could have a chance.

My grandfather was arrested
on his way across Russia

and locked up and
beaten so badly

that his left hand was
forever maimed.

My grandmother had
hidden in a hayloft

and watched part of her family
slaughtered in a pogrom.

My parents had both fought
and fought and fought

so that I could have a stable
life and get to go to school.

And my friends were
getting clubbed and hosed.

And who was I to leave
the stage?

So, I went back on stage
and I picked up my guitar,

and I started to sing again and
I thought "Okay, here I am."

♪ Come to my door, baby ♪

And I made it my business
to get through the song,

get through the show, and
as I kept singing the song,

they kept yelling and
fist-pumping,

and they were standing by now.

And then all of these ushers
came like a swarm of bees

from the back and they
shone their flashlights

into these people's faces
so that the whole audience

could see who they were.

And then the theater manager
came and he threw them out.

The whole clack of 'em.

♪ But honey he's not our kind ♪
(audience applauds)

And in between realizing
that these 20-odd people

had actually bought tickets

with the express purpose
of booing me off the stage,

there was also this sense that
what I was doing was right

and that's why it scared them.

And these other people,
people my age who were ushers,

the theater manager and
his group,

they were supporting me,

and most of the audience
was supporting me.

♪ I'm going to raise my
glistening wings and fly ♪

♪ But that day will have
to wait for a while ♪

♪ Baby,
I'm only society's child ♪

It was a life-changing
moment for me because

I realized, 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 believed,

and that was a huge deal
that music could do that.

I think that was a large part
of what set me on my course.

♪ Don't wanna see you
anymore, baby ♪

- [Arlo Guthrie] I'd
obviously heard the name

Janis Ian before we met.

The first time we actually
looked at each other eye to eye

was probably at the Grammys,
which was '67 or '68, '69,

something like that.

She had bought this gown
in the village in New York

at that time,
just for this occasion.

Janis Joplin had helped
her pick it out.

I thought that was pretty cool.

(spacey electric guitar music)

- [Janis] I got to work
with Joplin

at the Berklee Folk Festival.

Then I would play guitar
after hours with Jimi Hendrix.

They didn't care that I was 16.

They were protective because
of my age,

but otherwise,
it didn't matter.

What mattered was the songs
I was writing.

[Janis Sings "Queen
Merka And Me"]

♪ Oh, the pretty little
girl, on Easter's day ♪

♪ By a bright center
fountain consented to play ♪

♪ Held an Easter star ♪

I went on the Society's
Child Tour with Merka,

my friend from camp, who was
five years older than me,

and whose family had known
mine since before I was born,

as a chaperone.

I had to have a chaperone
because of the

childhood labor laws.

So, it was just me and Merka,

and it was great because
she was like a big sister.

- [Announcer] It's the
Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.

- [Dick Smothers] We're
going to present

an extremely talented

and very amazing young
lady named Janis Ian.

- [Janis] I was a big fan
of the Smothers Brothers.

It was a huge deal to me
to go on that.

But when you're shooting
a TV show,

especially in those days,
there's a lot of waiting
around.

You might get there at
eight o'clock,

and not be called until two
o'clock in the afternoon.

And then you might be
called for 10 minutes,

they show you your marks
and then you go away

until showtime at 10.

Merka was there with me and
there was only one chair.

So, I fell asleep sitting
on her lap.

And apparently,
Bill Cosby saw us,

and decided that we were
lesbian lovers.

- [Lily Tomlin] Bill Cosby
spoke out against her.

He said she was probably
a lesbian.

He said that to the press.

- [Janis] My manager then,
Jean Harcourt Powell,

read me the riot act.

She said that I had almost
gotten myself

bounced from television
forever.

My contract had morals
clauses in it.

I could've lost my ability
to perform anywhere.

I could've lost my union
membership.

So, I was forbidden from
ever hugging Merka in public,

or sitting in her lap,

or doing anything that
might be misconstrued.

- [Interviewer] How do you
react to the music business?

- [Janis] If you want to
be a star,

then you have to do what's
necessary to become a star.

- [Interviewer] What's that?

- [Janis] You have to sacrifice
a certain part of yourself

for a time and you have
to set a balance between

what you say and do and what
you really want to say and do.

I haven't resolved it
yet at all.

- [Janey Street] Child
prodigies in general,

and she was one,

have complications.

15 years old, I think she
had $750,000 in the bank.

It's just weird.

(school bell rings)

- [Janis] Can I just say
without going into detail

that I hated school?

My teachers gave me
a very hard time.

- [Interviewer] What's happened
with school with you now?

Are you still in school?

- [Janis] My presence in class
was found to be disturbing,

and I was asked to leave.

- [Interviewer] How disturbing?
I mean, emotionally?

- [Janis] No, not me. I mean
it wasn't disturbing me.

- [Interviewer] It was
disturbing-

- [Janis] It was disturbing
the teachers.

They get they get very
disturbed teachers in New York.

(audience laughs)

♪ Stop hey, what's that sound ♪

♪ Everybody look what's
goin' down ♪

- [Peter Cunningham] In the
fall of 1967, the Vietnam War

was going strong.

There was a march on
Washington to go to.

My friend John Howell
and Merka,

they were driving down to
the march on Washington.

So, I went with them,
and on the way,

they wanted to stop by and say
hello to Janis in New York.

(lock clicks)

I happened to have a pumpkin,
so I presented a pumpkin.

- [Janis] He held a
pumpkin out, and I thought

he was the most adorable
thing I had ever seen.

We were lovers for five
years, and friends since.

- [Peter] We toured the
country in small clubs.

Then we came back to New York,

and we got an apartment on
72nd Street.

We learned to cook spaghetti
with sauce,

and the Beatles' White
Album came out that fall,

so we listened intently
to that.

Janis and I never talked
about "Society's Child".

Never.

And she also never sang
the song onstage,

when I was with her.

- [Janis] I got really tired
of seeing posters that said,

"Little Janis Ian, Society's
Child, live tonight."

- [Peter] It wasn't
the best move

to never sing your hit song.

- [Janis] The record
company wanted to follow up

"Society's Child" with
something equally important,

and I was barely a writer.

So, it was just one thing
after another,

in this perfect storm
of horrible things.

- [Radio Host] Back last May,
Henrietta Yurchenko and I

brought you an interview with
a virtually unknown young lady

by the name of Janis Fink.

She is widely known
for her singing

and her songs as Janis Ian,

and tomorrow night, Friday,
December 8th,

Janis will be making her
debut at Philharmonic Hall

in a solo concert that I guess
will be virtually sold out.

(acoustic guitar strums)
(audience applauds)

- [Janis] When I was 17, I
played Philharmonic Hall,

and as I walked off stage
I said to my then manager,

"I'm done. I'm leaving.

I'm finishing my contracts,
I'm leaving."

And she said,
"They all say that."

I remember that's what
she said, and I said,

"They may all say that,
but I'm doing it."

- [Peter] That was '67
and then '68 happened

and change was happening
all over the world.

We were going to see a
B.B. King and Janis Joplin.

It was at Generation Club where
Jimi Hendrix had his studio.

- [Janis] Somebody came out on
stage, interrupted the show,

and said something to B.B.
and he announced to the room

that Martin Luther King
had been shot and was dead.

And then he played, 'cause
what else do you do?

(mellow blues music)

- (BB King, "There Must Be
A Better World Somewhere")

♪ Sometimes I wonder ♪

♪ Just what I'm out
fighting for ♪

- [News Anchor] The Reverend
Dr. Martin Luther King,

39 years old,

and a Nobel Peace Prize winner,

and the leader
of the non-violent civil rights
movement

in the United States,
was assassinated in Memphis
tonight.

♪ I keep right on stumbling ♪

♪ In this no-man's land
out here ♪

- [Peter] Our hearts got
ripped out a lot, at that time.

- [Janis] We listened
and played until dawn.

Everybody was so shook.

And then I decided that I
would walk home.

And on my way home, a big
beefy guy bumped into me

and knocked me flat.

This other guy rushed forward
and he said,

"Hey, you okay? You okay,
you okay?"

And I said, "I'm all right."
And he gave me a Coca-Cola.

I guzzled about a third of it
and things got really weird.

(Janis Ian,
"Insanity Comes Quietly to
the Structured Mind")

♪ She sits on a windowsill,
looking down it's quite
a thrill ♪

The world started to shimmer.

It was like everything
had light at the edges.

There were flames,
cars were melting,

and then the street got wavy.

It was your proverbial
bad acid trip.

Now, in retrospect, I know if
I'd drunk that whole thing,

I would've been checked
out forever.

♪ Looking outward through
my pain ♪

♪ Looking through my
window pane ♪

♪ See her face turn into rain ♪

- [Janis] I was just
hallucinating for four days.

- [Peter] She would say
crazy things.

No, she wouldn't be able
to answer the phone.

She refused to talk to people.

(upbeat rock music)

♪ Well,
I'm tired of being a fool ♪

♪ And my mind going from
hot to cool ♪

♪ And trying to conform to
others ideas ♪

♪ And someone else's rules ♪

- [Peter] She was not able
to cope with daily reality.

- [Janis] I was terrified,
most of the time.

I smoked a lot of dope.

I just wanted to sleep
until it was different.

So, I took a lot of Seconal

when Peter was supposed
to be gone for the day.

I got very lucky that he came
home early,

and he found me and
took me to the hospital.

- [Peter] She stopped
functioning,

and her friend, Carol Hunter,

who's a guitar player,
helped Janis find a shrink,

and the shrink was in
Philadelphia.

(wipers thump rhythmically)

- [Peter] We went to
Philadelphia and met this
amazing man

named Jerry Weiss.

- [Janis] Jerry said to me,

"If you keep trying to
kill yourself,

I'm going to put you somewhere
where there will be no pen,

no paper, and no piano."

And that took care
of it for me.

There was no way I was
going there.

- [Janis] Peter brought
me books.

He brought me Rimbaud,
Cocteau, all the great poets.

All the things that I had
never really been exposed to,

because of my age.

- [Peter] That kind of just
normal life,

not having to be onstage
and on, all the time.

It was something I could
give to her,

so she was able to find
herself in a different way.

- [Janis] The middle
of the winter,

I walked out with no jacket,

and I took the train into
Central Philadelphia,

not telling Peter where
I was going, of course,

'cause why would I?

- [Peter] She just disappeared
one day I was fearing
the worst, you know?

Some kind of self-harm.

And Jerry Weiss, who had
never lost a patience,

was also concerned.

- [Janis] I stayed at the
library, and I just wrote.

I just wrote for the day.

That night, I walked
over to Jerry's office,

found him in his car,
and he started crying,

and it suddenly occurred to
me that there were people

who really cared about me.

Not my music,
not my talent. Me.

That was a big realization.

And then somebody had sent
me Don McLean's record,

and I heard "Vincent".

♪ Starry, starry night ♪

♪ Paint your palette blue
and gray ♪

♪ Look out on a summer's day ♪

♪ With eyes that know
the darkness in my soul ♪

- [Janis] It was everything
that I ever wanted

to be as a writer.

It was true, it was
beautiful, it was elegant,

but it was accessible.

♪ And how you suffered
for your sanity ♪

- [Janis] It's a brave song,
and for me,

it taught me that Jerry Weiss
was right.

The best way for me to write
was from an open place.

♪ Perhaps they'll listen now ♪

- [Peter] She was playing
music all the time and writing,

and at the same time,
I picked up a camera

for the first time and fell
in love with the darkroom.

(water splashes)

(light guitar strumming)

- [Peter] I was in the
darkroom and I'm quite engaged

with what I was doing and she
was right on the other side

of the door sitting,
I think, on the floor,

picking at her guitar and
apparently

writing a song called "Stars".

♪ I was never one for singing ♪

♪ What I ♪

♪ Really feel ♪

- It's a song that has
perspective

on what it means to be
a performer.

People will pay attention
to you and then they won't.

Your star will rise and
then it will fall,

and that is the way
of the world.

♪ Stars, they come and go ♪

♪ They come fast,
they come slow ♪

♪ They go like the last light
of the sun, all in a blaze ♪

♪ And all you see is glory ♪

♪ Some make it when
they're young ♪

♪ Before the world has
done its dirty job ♪

♪ Later on, someone will
say you've had your day ♪

♪ You must make way ♪

- [Ann Powers] It's
interesting to me

that "Stars" was inspired

by Don McLean's song "Vincent",

because they're very
different in a way.

Janis actually goes somewhere
that Don McLean didn't go,

which is into self-analysis
and observations

about the present day, about
the attractions of stardom,

as well as the way it
damages people.

♪ I just meant to tell
a story ♪

♪ I lived from day to day ♪

- [Janis] "Stars" is my story.

"Stars" is every
performer's story, in a way.

That's probably why it's
my most recorded song.

But for me, after I wrote
"Stars" and then "Jesse",

I thought, "Well, maybe I
can be a really good writer."

"Jesse", take one.

♪ Jesse, come home ♪

♪ There's a hole in the bed ♪

♪ Where we slept ♪

- [Joan Baez] "Jesse"
has an aura.

It is something unique and
it gets under your skin

and you can't really say
what all that is.

♪ Hey, Jesse ♪

♪ Your face ♪

♪ In the place where we lay ♪

♪ By the hearth ♪

- [Baez] Somebody's lonesome
and wants their person back.

To find the ways to say
that that aren't trite,

that's the trick.

I think that's what
makes the song brilliant.

♪ And I'm keeping the
light on the stairs ♪

- [Powers] It takes
you right into

the experience of longing,

of yearning, of hunger,

of almost being blinded by
loneliness.

♪ Hey, Jess ♪

♪ Me and you ♪

♪ We'll swallow ♪

♪ The light on the stairs ♪

♪ We'll do up my hair ♪

♪ Come home ♪

- [Peter] She had a
meeting in LA to go to,

so she took a flight.

It was literally one of the
first times we'd been separate.

(plane engines roar)

- [Janis] Flew out to LA
and I tried to strip away

everything that I had been
taught I was

and become who I actually was.

And I started morphing then,

as you do in your late teens,
early 20s,

into a different person
physically.

All of a sudden, I had
short hair and it was like,

"Oh, look at this, I'm a
different human being."

- [Peter] Janis came back
with the announcement

that she had fallen in
love with another woman.

"She left me for another
woman" is the joke I make.

And after I got over the shock,

I did nothing but encourage it.

- [Janis] So, I was
attending this health club,

The Sanctuary, and I met
this teacher, Claire,

and just fell head over
heels with her.

(Janis Ian, "Light a Light")

♪ Now am I humble,
who once was proud ♪

♪ Now am I silent,
who once was loud ♪

♪ Now am I waiting for
the sound of your saying ♪

♪ Lover, am I coming ♪

- [Janis] Claire was an
earth mother.

She was all of the things that
would be wonderful in your

first relationship as an adult.

Just as Peter was all the
things that were wonderful

in my first relationship as an
adolescent.

- [Peter] Although I
didn't know how my life

would go from there,

it was kind of exciting that I
would have

an independent life again.

- [Janis] He had a real
eye for a portrait.

I mean,
all of my photos from 1968,

right up through the '80s,
was Peter.

I moved into a little place
on Hollywood Boulevard.

Couldn't afford air
conditioning.

I would go down to a store
called Zodys in the summer

and sit and nurse a
Coca-Cola for two hours

and sit in their air
conditioning.

It was great because I had
nothing to do

and no money to do it with,
but write all day long.

- [Janey Street] She was
writing songs and doing
something

that was very special and
people picked up on it.

Her and Claire came to
our house in Woodstock

and stayed with us and Brooks
Arthur came up, and Jean.

Jean Powell was the manager
and they were gonna talk

about doing a record.

- [Brooks Arthur]
Knowing Janis from '65

and "Society's Child",

we did groove back then and
there's no reason in the world

we couldn't groove again,
you know?

(Janis,
"The Man You Are In Me")

♪ I love the light, I
love the changing season ♪

♪ I love without much
thought to reason ♪

♪ I'd give it all if
I could make you see ♪

♪ I love the man that
you were meant to be ♪

- [Barry Lazarowitz] I
had been playing with

Janis for a bit.

Janis had started recording
the "Stars" album.

We used to work at 914,
which was Brooks' studio.

- [Janis] I would record in
the mornings.

Melanie would come in after,

and then Springsteen would
come in after.

So, the studio was
running 24-7.

The more that I put together
this album,

the more I realized I
was tremendously excited.

♪ I love the man who hides
behind you ♪

♪ I love the shadow though it
disappears ♪

♪ I love the afterglow
reflected through the tears ♪

♪ I love the shadow in
my tears ♪

♪ Ooh ♪

♪ I love the dreams you can't
remember ♪

- [Janis] Brooks was just
at the height

of his engineering prowess.

Ron Frangipane at his
arranging prowess.

And they believed in me
when nobody else did.

- [Brooks] My wife Marilyn
and I got a second mortgage

to pay studio bills.

We found a little bungalow
for her

and her housemate, Claire.

And Claire attended
the recordings like a studio
groupie.

(Janis, "You've Got Me
on a String")

♪ You've ♪

♪ Got me on a string ♪

- [Brooks] She'd come
in with food,

making sure Janis was
eating correctly,

and then they would primp and
prop their hairs together,

you know what I mean?

They would fix up their faces
and be chicks for a minute.

♪ I'm holding on to no one ♪

- [Brooks] That's something
I'll always remember, you know?

"Move over, I have to
go out and do a vocal."

"Yeah, but fix your hair.
You gotta look right."

♪ I would get down on
my knees ♪

- [Brooks] The guys envied
and goggled over Claire,

and yet, Janis was the one
who took her home, you know?

- [Lazarowitz] In those
days, we were

all kind of progressive
hippies,

you know, anything
goes, everything's fine.

It was family.

(Instrumental interlude from
Janis's "Dance With Me")

The first few tracks
with Janis on "Stars",

we cut them as trios, just me
and Janis and Richard Davis.

Probably one of the 10 greatest
upright bass players ever.

When he would play with Janis,
the music would just soar.

(Janis, "Dance With Me")

♪ Come and dance,
come and dance ♪

♪ I'm home from overseas ♪

♪ And I need your company ♪

♪ Celebrate the victory ♪

- [Brooks] I had a meeting with
my friend Charles Koppelman,

who was then the head of
Columbia Records, and he said,

"What's Janis's deal? We
love what we're hearing."

I said, "She needs a comeback.

Time hasn't been easy for her."

- [Janis] Charles Koppelman
said that if I could go down

to the Columbia CBS convention
and get 600 promotion people

to give me a standing ovation,

I could get a record contract.

So, I went down with Barry
Lazarowitz and Richard Davis,

and we came out on stage.

(Janis Ian, "Without You")

♪ I miss you, jealous lover ♪

♪ Won't you come on over
to my side of town ♪

♪ I need you ♪

- [Lazarowitz] Janis,
standing there

with just an acoustic guitar.

You could hear a pin drop.
It was just mesmerizing.

♪ I see you,
a world without end ♪

♪ Then I need you all
over again ♪

♪ Without you,
the sun doesn't shine ♪

♪ Tomorrow is blind ♪

♪ Without you ♪

(audience cheers and applauds)

- [Janis] I got my standing
ovation.

Then I got a record contract.

- [Alison Steele]
That's Janis Ian.

Alison Steele, The Nightbird,
WNEW-FM and the new groove,

and we fly many miles.

- [Brooks] The record came
out and started to make it.

Alison Steele, The Nightbird,

went completely through
the first side,

flipped the album over and
played the complete album

on the second side, which
is a miracle in those days.

And then, of course, Roberta
Flack recorded "Jesse".

♪ Hey, Jesse,
your face in the place ♪

♪ Where we lay by the hearth ♪

- [Powers] Roberta Flack was
total royalty in the '70s.

She was at the top
of every chart.

She was winning tons
of Grammys.

If Roberta Flack was
gonna cover your song,

that was gonna take you places.

(Cher singing "Stars")

♪ I was never one for singing ♪

♪ What I really feel ♪

- Cher recorded "Stars"
itself, the title track.

- [Janis] Mel Torme covered
it and Glenn Campbell.

Just this amazing,
wide group of artists.

(Nina Simone singing "Stars")

♪ Stars, they come and go ♪

♪ They come fast,
they come slow ♪

♪ They go like the last light
of the sun, all in a blaze ♪

♪ And all you see is glory ♪

- [Janis] Somehow between
the age of 10 and 14,

and I don't know how, I decided
that I was going to be

a performative songwriter
and a player.

And I knew that I wanted to
record and I wanted to arrange.

And the only person
doing all of them

that I could find was
Nina Simone.

♪ Some make it when
they're young ♪

♪ Before the world has
done its dirty job ♪

- [Powers] Janis may not
have been

thinking about Nina Simone

when she wrote "Stars", but
you certainly can see how

the lyrics to that song
apply to Nina Simone's life.

She was one of the greatest
geniuses popular music
ever saw,

but also someone who
suffered so much in her life,

and in her art.

♪ Time to tell my story ♪

♪ Janis Ian told it very well ♪

♪ Janis Joplin told it
even better ♪

- [Janis] It is the thrill
of a lifetime

to have a hero perform
your work.

And even then, (chuckles)
she does such a Nina with it.

- [Powers] For a very young
woman to get almost eaten up by

the same machine that was
afflicting her

and causing her pain,

the identification must have
been instant.

- [Janis] Sometime between
the "Stars" album coming out

and being able to go on tour,

I had no money and I had
nowhere to live.

So Claire and I moved in
with my mom,

until I could actually start
earning enough on the road

to get a place of our own.

And it was hard, I mean,
it's hard going back home

in your 20s, and in my
day, it was shameful.

So, one of the things that
I did to feel like I was

carrying my weight was to
write every day.

I was sitting at my mom's,

and I was reading the New
York Times Sunday Magazine.

There was an article by
a woman who talked about

when she was 18 and she had
her coming out debutante ball,

and as it turned out,
it was a hard lesson.

(gentle acoustic guitar music)

I was playing that (hums
melody) on the guitar,

and then I thought,
"I've learned the truth."

It's literally the first
line of the article.

But 18 didn't scan, so
it became 17. (laughs)

(Janis Ian, "At Seventeen")

♪ I learned the truth at 17 ♪

♪ That love was meant
for beauty queens ♪

♪ And high school girls
with clear-skinned smiles ♪

♪ Who married young and
then retired ♪

(paper tears)

♪ The valentines I never knew ♪

♪ The Friday night charades
of youth ♪

♪ Were spent on one
more beautiful ♪

♪ At 17, I learned the truth ♪

[Janis] I wrote that first
verse and then put it in
the drawer

'cause it was scary.

Came back to it a month
later, wrote the second verse,

and then I called
Brooks Arthur at 914.

- [Brooks] Janis and I
got together,

and professionals in the studio

all suddenly quieted down

as Janis showed us the first
32 bars of "At Seventeen".

When the song was over,
there was a gentle ripple

of applause from the pros
in the studio,

the pros in the office,

and the pros coming out
of the bathroom,

and the pros who heard the
buzz from the football field,

they all came inside, there
must've been 15 or 18 people.

This was my litmus test.

My litmus test, and the
first time I realized

that Janis had a smash.

(sound of door opening)

- [Janis] We were in the
studio, and I brought in a kid,

David Snider, who'd never
been in the studio before,

because I wanted his energy.

And the guitarist,

who was supposed to be
the lead guitarist,

kept making rude comments
about David, and at David,

because, you know, he
wasn't a professional,

he wasn't a real musician,

he wasn't in the union.

- [David Snider] She
stood up for me.

She said, "Well,
I like the way he plays,

and I like the way he
makes my music sound,

and I like the energy
he's bringing to my music,

and if you don't like
it, there's the door."

It was really nice for her
to stand up for me like that.

- [Janis] Brooks backed me up,

the arranger Ron Frangipane
backed me up,

and everybody shut up,

and we got on with the
business of making a record.

- [Brooks] It's a very
hard phenomenon to explain.

We'd get into our seats
at the studio

and Janis would get behind the
guitar mic and the vocal mic.

Ronnie Frangipane would
count it off,

and as if by some superpower,
or by magic,

in my mind's eye,
we would lift off.

(Janis Ian,
"When the Party's Over")

♪ Would you like to sing
my song ♪

♪ Would you like to learn
to love me best of all ♪

- [Snider] I watched Brooks
and Janis interacting

when they were mixing and
also recording.

Brooks was a great producer.

He knew how to get the
best out of musicians,

but at the same time,

you could see that he
respected her genius.

♪ I can teach you how to sing
and dance ♪

♪ With a song and
dance routine ♪

♪ And when the party's over ♪

♪ You can fall in love
with me ♪

- [Brooks] She and I would
walk through

every bar, every measure,

and yes,
my hands were on the faders,

and I'll take some credit
for some of the sound,

but it was really all
about her performance.

(Janis Ian, "In the Winter")

♪ There's always radio ♪

♪ And for a dime I can
talk to God ♪

♪ Dial-a-Prayer,
are you there ♪

- [Brooks] There was
some kind of

crazy chemistry between us.

A kind of studio love story.

Music only, though.

♪ Extra blankets for the cold ♪

♪ Fix the heater getting old ♪

♪ I am wiser now, you know ♪

- [Janis] Brooks taught me
to sing on a microphone.

Brooks taught me how to be
in the studio,

just like Shadow taught me
how to be with musicians.

And then it became this
great circular thing.

- [Brooks] The net
result is art.

♪ Ooh ♪

("In The Winter" crescendos)

- [Brooks] This is one
of the reels from 1974.

The album was called
"Watercolors",

which became "Between
the Lines".

I can't say the rest is
history, but history
was being made.

Irwin Segelstein was then the
president of Columbia Records.

He had a daughter who was
a college-level daughter.

She told her dad to listen
to this song

called "At Seventeen",
she thinks that's a hit,

and Irwin Segelstein
called Charles Koppelman.

Charles Koppelman called us,

and said that he's gonna
release "At Seventeen".

- [Janis] We were facing
a music industry with

"At Seventeen" that said "It's
gotta be under three minutes.

This is four and a half.
It won't work.

It's gotta be up-tempo. We
can't play it in drive time."

So, we sent copies
of that record,

not to the program directors
at radio, but to their wives.

Every radio station I visited,

I made sure that I honed in
on the women in the station,

the secretaries at the time.

(plane engines roar)

- [Brooks] I got a job offer
in LA to do

an album with Art Garfunkel.

I was working at this
recording studio right here,

Village Recorders here
in West LA,

and Art Garfunkel told me,

"You're in your final days
of poverty.

Your single 'At Seventeen'
is lighting up the charts."

(upbeat music)

I would drive on
the Coast Highway,

to let some air out of my head
and I would click onto KNXFM

and I'd be hearing
"At Seventeen".

I'd move to another station,
I'd hear "At Seventeen",

and another spot, all
within the breadth of five

or 10 minutes, I'd hear it at
four different radio stations.

- [Johhny Carson] When Janis
Ian was about 15 years old,

she had an enormous success

with a song called
"Society's Child".

- [Janis] Carson, at the
time, was undisputed king.

- [Carson] She recorded
this album

called "Between the Lines".

- [Janis] If you were on
Carson, it was like you reached

this gigantic audience
and it put you on the map.

- [Carson] Would you
welcome, please, Janis Ian?

(audience applauds)

(Janis Ian, "At Seventeen")

- [Celine Dion] I always
hated school,

because I didn't fit in.

I didn't look pretty.
I didn't feel pretty.

And I think that's why...

[Celine] ♪ I learned
the truth at 17 ♪

[Janis] ♪ I learned
the truth at 17 ♪

- [Laurie Metcalf] I played
the hell out of that record.

It was so specific

and so relevant

for generations of women.

To this day,

it affects me the same way,
as when I first heard it.

♪ And the rich-relationed
hometown queen ♪

♪ Marries into what she needs ♪

- [Jean Smart] It's not just
she's talking

about the pain of adolescence,

and the pain of feeling
like an ugly duckling,

and the pain of not being in
the in-crowd, or whatever.

It's also about being
the tall, blonde,

blue-eyed cheerleader.

♪ Remember those who win
the game ♪

♪ Lose the love they
sought to gain ♪

- [Smart] I was the
cheerleader. (chuckles)

I was the girl that Janis
sang about in "At Seventeen".

I was the good girl who was
dating the bad boy. (chuckles)

♪ Their small-town eyes will
gape at you in dull surprise ♪

♪ When payment due ♪

- [Snider] I don't care if
you're super handsome,
beautiful,

if you're smart,
or you're dumb.

Everybody feels like a piece
of shit, in some kind of way.

- [James Reed] I was
a very weirdo kid

growing up in the '80s and '90s

in the Midwest and all of my
peers were listening to Nirvana

and Guns N' Roses and I,
for some reason,

was this little sad closeted
kid who was like listening

to Joan Baez and Phil Ochs
and Janis Ian by candlelight.

(James chuckles)

The line that always
made me laugh,

because if you didn't
laugh, you would almost cry,

was the line, "To those whose
names were never called,

when choosing sides
for basketball."

♪ And those whose names
were never called ♪

♪ When choosing sides
for basketball ♪

- [Reed] I was never picked
(chuckles) for any sports team.

♪ When dreams were all
they gave for free ♪

♪ To ugly duckling
girls like me ♪

- [Powers] I mean, I was
that ugly duckling girl,

and so the song hit me
pretty hard.

♪ Inventing lovers on
the phone ♪

- [Powers] The fact that
Janis had such a huge hit,

and such an iconic impact
with that song,

I think speaks to its universal
relevance.

(audience cheers and applauds)

- [Janis] When the Grammy
announcements came out in '76

for the records that had
been released in '75,

I had five nominations.

It was amazing.

- Best Engineering
Non-Classical,
"Between the Lines",

Brooks Arthur, Larry
Alexander and Russ Payne.

- [Brooks] I won a Grammy
for Best Engineered Album.

Janis was up
for Best Female Vocalist.

And Lily Tomlin comes
walking out,

envelope in hand, and says,

- [Tomlin] And the winner is,
"At Seventeen", Janis Ian.

(audience cheers and applauds)

(House orchestra plays
"At Seventeen")

- [Brooks] It was just an
all-time high.

We did it.

She did it.

And Janis looked so beautiful
that night.

- [Janis] Thank you.
It's been a long time.

Thank you.

- [Tomlin] Most people can't
bear to have a platform,

and not use it in some way.

But she just said,
"It's been a while."

- [Brooks] The album was a
smash and the Grammys were won,

and Janis was at the top
of her game.

(Janis Ian,
"Bright Lights and Promises")

♪ Bright lights and promises ♪

♪ Ain't that what it's for ♪

- [Janis] The last three
years have been great,

'cause I've been doing what
I want to do,

how I want to do it,

with people that I really
enjoy doing it with.

I mean, you can't ask any
more than that.

♪ I'm gold lame and diamonds ♪

♪ Even if my gold is worn ♪

♪ Honey, can you show ♪

♪ Me more ♪

- [Lazarowitz] Going from
a coffeehouse to, you know,

thousands of seats,

it was just a fabulous
experience.

(audience applauds)

- [Brooks] The Janis
Ian world was awaiting

the next heartbeat.

I kept on lobbying for
another "At Seventeen",

a song that speaks for those

who can't quite speak
for themselves.

I needed another one of those
to launch the third album,

"Aftertones",
and I was kind of annoyed

that it wasn't coming.

- [Janis] I make records and
I do concerts and I write,

and they're three very
separate things.

There's no way to duplicate
a record in a concert,

for instance.

There's no way to write
while you're doing concerts.

- [Baez] There are a few
songwriters

who can just crank
this stuff out.

Most of us needed time to make
songs not all sound the same.

You cannot write,
in my opinion, a hit,

just 'cause you're clever
enough to write a hit.

It has to come from
somewhere deep.

- [Lazarowitz] There were
some really wonderful

pieces on "Aftertones".

(Janis Ian, "Love is Blind")

♪ Love is blind ♪

♪ How will I remember ♪

♪ In the heat of summer
pleasure winter fades ♪

♪ How long will it take
before I can't remember ♪

♪ Memories I should forget ♪

♪ I've been burning since
the day we met ♪

- [Lazarowitz] Songs like
"Love Is Blind"

and "Boy I Really Tied One On",

they're great songs,
they're great tracks.

- [Brooks] The songs that she
was writing were all great,

but some songs are drop-dead
unbelievably magnificent.

I would've waited until
one more song was ready,

but Columbia wanted
the record out,

and if you don't come through,

the artist's not guilty,
the producer's guilty.

So, I felt it was my business
to speak up.

♪ In the morning, waking
to the sound of weeping ♪

♪ Someone else should
weep for me ♪

- [Brooks] In Japan,

"Love is Blind" was number
one for a year.

But though the album went
gold, I labeled it "cold gold",

'cause coming off of "Between
the Lines",

which was multi-platinum,
it was rough waters.

- [Janis] I knew that album
wasn't ready.

I knew I wasn't ready.

I knew it was not an
appropriate follow-up

to "Between the Lines".

Brooks also knew it.
My manager knew it.

But everybody bowed to
CBS's need

for the fourth quarter,
for the stockholders.

♪ In the heat of summer
pleasure ♪

♪ Winter fades ♪

- [Janis] Billy Joel and
myself and Bruce Springsteen

were three artists close to
the same age,

all on the same record label.

And so it's natural for
the record label to try

and get us all to work
together as much as possible.

Billy opened for Janis at the
Universal Amphitheater in LA.

They hadn't covered
the roof yet,

so it was open and it
was beautiful.

It was like singing to
the gods,

for goodness sakes, you know?

(Billy Joel, "Piano Man")

♪ Sing us a song,
you're the piano man ♪

♪ Oh, sing us a song tonight ♪

- [Janis] Billy opened
the show and he slayed!

He was just amazing!

- [Brooks] He was
Billy Joel, man.

He played "Piano Man" and he
played "Italian Restaurant",

and the place lit up,
it was incredible.

(harmonica solo)

Janis followed Billy,

but she wasn't communicating
with the audience.

She was tuning the piano a
lot and kept her head down,

and she had a beautiful smile,

but she didn't show that
beautiful smile

that particular night.

The contrast between Billy
and Janis was night and day.

- [Janis] The show
was terrible.

That day,
I swore to myself that

I would never be unprepared
for a show again.

Didn't matter how tired I was,

didn't matter how hard it was,

I would never turn in
that bad a show, ever.

- [Brooks] A lot of
people started to leave

and as they were leaving,

they'd be singing a Billie Joel
tune, which broke my heart,

'cause it was Janis'
night to win.

At the end of the show,
I told her and Jean

that Billy blew you off stage,

and you don't want to let
that happen.

You gotta involve your
audience.

They made you platinum and
multi-platinum,

and you just gotta be
part of that.

Of course,
they didn't like what I said,

and Janis and I got together
and we talked it through.

- [Janis] Brooks was a genius
engineer. Absolute genius.

And I don't use that
word lightly.

But we talked and I said,
"Man, you've got two choices.

You can produce people like me,

people who are not going to
be the flavor of the month,

who may not have hits,

but who will give you
street credibility.

Or you can go to LA and you can
produce those other people."

And I can't fault him for it.

He went to LA and produced
those other people.

But to me, the moment he
took his hands off the board,

he was only half of what
he'd been.

- [Brooks] It took some time,
it took some doing,

but Janis and I repaired
our differences.

Time heals everything,
so to speak.

- [Peter Cunningham] Janis
and I were no longer together,

but we were pals,

and she asked if she could use
the apartment one afternoon

to do an interview.

- [Janis] A reporter
for the Village Voice,

a guy named Cliff Jar,
he came on tour with us,

and I kept saying to my
manager,

"I don't have a good
feeling about this.

I don't know why, but I don't
have a good feeling about it."

And then one day,

Peter called me at
about midnight and said,

"I've just seen the upcoming
Village Voice article.

The back page is about
you being bisexual."

And I think I crawled
under the covers

and hid for half a day until
Claire pulled them off me

and told me to pull
myself together.

- [James Reed] On the male
side of pop musicians,

and rock musicians,

you were allowed to be
flamboyant.

You could sort of skirt
the edges of,

"Is this person gay,
is this person not?"

You think of David Bowie,
you think of Lou Reed.

Even Iggy Pop.

You had these virile male
rock stars who could,

they could toe that line.

Women couldn't do that.

- [Janis] I was living my
life and living it openly

in terms of my circle,

but not making a huge
thing of it in the press.

So by what right did he say

that that was the most
important part of our lives?

- [Lazarowitz] At some point
along the way, you know,

you know,
as love would have it,

I don't know exactly what and
when and what day it happened,

but, you know,
Claire and I fell in love.

- [Janis] We were on tour and
my manager pulled me aside

and said, "You're the
only one who doesn't know,

and here's what's going on."

- [Brooks] Claire was having
a scene going

with Barry Lazarowitz,
the drummer.

- [Janis] Barry hit on me
and I said "No."

So, he hit on Claire and
she said "Yes."

But she forgot to tell me.

That was devastating.

- [Brooks] Claire went on
with Barry.

They got married and had kids,

and Janis was left in
the lurch.

- [Janis] People come
and go. The work goes on.

The work is the constant.

It's the glory of being
an artist.

(Janis Ian, "Silly Habits")

♪ I'm still in love ♪

♪ Though I don't care to let
you know ♪

- [Janis] I found
myself bereft.

And so, one night,
I sat down and I wrote

a very sad love song.

I sent it in to my publisher
and a few weeks later,

he called and he said,"Oh, we
love that jazz song you wrote.

That's great.
We're really excited.

Aren't you excited about it?"

And I said, "Well,
my heart's broke,

but I'm feeling a little
better."

♪ Silly habits mean a lot ♪

- [Janis] He calls in another
couple of weeks and he says,

"Oh, you know that jazz
singer Mel Torme

wants to cut that song of
yours, isn't that great?"

I said, "Well, my heart's broke
but I feel a little better."

(Mel Torme) ♪ I've been
parading ♪

♪ Yeah, I've led a lot astray ♪

♪ Why bother waiting ♪

♪ You can have it all today ♪

- [Janis] So, I go down and
make this record with
Mel Torme.

Six months after it comes
out, the Grammy people call.

They say, "You know, that
record you made with Mel Torme

it's nominated for Best
Jazz Duet for a Grammy."

And I said, "Well,
my heart's still broke,

but I feel a whole lot
better now."

Two weeks after the Grammys,
I run into my ex, who says,

"I hear you took it
really hard.

I will stand here and you
can yell at me,

as much as you want.

Go ahead, hit me right
here. Do whatever you want.

I'll just stand here
and take it."

And I said, "I have four
words to say for you.

Thank you so much."

(Janis and Mel singing
together) ♪ Silly habits ♪

♪ Mean a ♪

♪ Lot ♪

(piano closing, audience
cheers and applauds)

- [Host] How about that!

The great Janis Ian!
Oh, what a kick for me.

- [Janey Street] After that
whole thing, she moved to LA,

and was living with Tino.

He was this real intellectual,
and he was an older man.

I remember him really being
like kind of an older man.

(chuckles) I don't know, man.

It's pretty hard to keep up
with Janis.

- [Janis] If you're in love
with somebody,

you're in love with them.

You may tilt.
I tilt toward women.

But I fell in love with Tino.

I had been very insulated in
many ways, for many years.

And now, here was the world.
Here was the Comedie-Francaise.

Here was Portugal.

Here was an entire universe
I knew nothing about.

The man spoke seven
languages fluently.

He could make me laugh for
hours and hours and hours.

- [Street] Janis seemed happy,
you know?

And that's all I cared
about, is Janis being happy.

(Janis Ian, "Fly Too High")

♪ Anonymous autonomous will
likely get the best of us yet ♪

- [Arti Dixson] At this
time in Janis's career,

she wrote a song called
"Fly Too High".

- [Janis] I'd been hanging
out a lot with gay guys

who were going to the baths,

and so the song was about
the baths, you know?

"Anonymous likely get
the best of us yet."

♪ Run too fast ♪

♪ Fly too high ♪

♪ Run too fast ♪

♪ Fly too high ♪

- [Interviewer] Some people
are saying,

"Well, what the hell is she
doing now?"

- [Janis] Well, I'm just
doing stuff that's going to-

- [Interviewer] Ian goes disco.

- [Janis] I haven't gone
disco. It's not a disco song.

If I wanted to go disco,
I'd have cut a whole album.

- [Arti Dixson]
"Fly Too High" offered

another energy to her music,

and she was a big star in
other countries.

We were given this red
carpet treatment

in most every country that
we visited and toured in.

(Janis Ian, "Will You Dance?")

♪ Someone is waiting ♪

(audience applauds)

♪ Over by the window ♪

♪ Just beyond the stairwell,
someone's crying ♪

- [Dixson] I remember the
limousine driver in Japan

wearing white gloves.

- [Reiko Yukawa] In Japan,
her concert tour was huge.

Very successful concerts.

- [Arti Dixson] Traveling
to Australia, traveling
to Holland,

Ireland, Scotland,
we were taken out to dinner
every night.

It was pretty amazing.

- [Janis] I got an offer
to go to South Africa

and spend six weeks
playing there.

- [Mark Fine] In 1948, the
South African authorities

implemented apartheid, which
means "apartness" in Dutch.

And since then, there was
this discrete separation

between Black and Whites,
in all aspects of life.

[South African activist]
The African people are
realizing that apartheid

means nothing else but
oppression and exploitation.

(gun fires)

- [Officer] We are going
to take action against you.

- [Dixson] At the time,
there was a cultural boycott

for musicians and anybody
to go to South Africa.

- [Janis] I thought
about it a lot,

because a lot of my fellow
performers were boycotting,

and I decided that I didn't
believe in cultural boycotts.

I had the contracts written
so that they specified

integrated theaters,
integrated hotels,

integrated transportation,
everything integrated.

- [Fine] I think she had
a mission to go there,

to literally open hearts
and minds.

(Janis, singing later
version of "Society's Child")

♪ You come to my door, baby ♪

♪ Face is clean and
shining black as night ♪

♪ My mama went to answer,
you know ♪

♪ That you looked so fine ♪

- [Mark Fine]
The "Society's Child" song

was an extraordinary gift

to a society that was
going through

some extraordinary tensions.

- [South African couple] You
are only married before God.
That's all.

- To think that a mixed
marriage is making

such a big shebang here,
that's sort of sad.

(drum solo)

- [Janis] Mr.
Artie Dixon on the drums.

- [Janis] To this day,
I get letters

from people who were there

who say, "That's the first
time I ever saw

an integrated band
onstage playing together."

"It's the first time I ever
sat next to a Black person."

"First time I ever sat
next to a White person."

- [Fine] She got the consent
to perform

to mixed-race audiences.

And that's very important
because that was
the very reason

the boycott was put in place.

- [Dixson] We were able
to play for all the people

in South Africa,

but there were some
repercussions for going there.

- [Janis] The UN banned me.

I couldn't do television
or radio for two years,

and they offered me the
choice, the UN, they said

if I would say that I didn't
understand

that it was apartheid, they
would forgive me, and I said,

"No, I'm not gonna lie and
say I didn't know it existed."

(Janis ) ♪ I sure get lonely ♪

- [Janis] The job of an
artist is bigger

than a cultural boycott.

It doesn't make sense to
keep people from hearing

what may change their hearts.

(gentle string music)

- [Dixson] When I first
met Janis,

her husband, Tino,
was with her.

- [Janey Street] He had a
gun, and he showed it to me

and it went off.

I'll never forget that.

And my ear, I mean,
it took me like days

to get my hearing back
and it was very fortunate

that it just went into the wall
somewhere.

(string music continues)

- [Janis] He had to be there
all the time.

He would get very jealous of
anybody I spent time with.

(Janis Ian, "Watercolors")

♪ I said do you wish me dead ♪

♪ Lip service to books
you've read ♪

Things started to get weird.

I couldn't go into his
closet, and there were locks.

Then he hit me.

And I remember thinking,
I have a lot of money,

and I have fame and I'm
not one of those women.

- [Street] She acted
like everything was fine.

She was very under his
thumb, though.

I mean, I knew that, but I
didn't think it was a problem.

♪ Go find a fence,
locate a shell ♪

♪ And hide yourself, go on,
go to hell ♪

♪ Go away from me ♪

- [Janis] The last time
I saw him,

he held a gun on me
for seven hours.

I talked to him about
being Catholic,

about how his grandmother
would feel.

I urged him to take
more Valium,

because he took a lot
of Valium.

I urged him to keep drinking.
I hoped he would pass out.

He finally agreed with
me that he was tired,

and I helped him up to bed,
left the house, that was it.

And it's a terrible thing
to say in some ways,

but the day that he died

was the day that I
finally felt free

because I no longer had to
worry about him coming for me.

♪ Set me free ♪

(Instrumental conclusion
of "Watercolors")

(phone rings)

- [Janis] I woke up one day
and my checks had bounced.

Somebody called me from a
credit card company and said,

"Are you aware that your bill
is three months overdue?"

And I said, "Ah,
it's gotta be a mistake.

My business manager's been
with me since I was 14."

It wasn't a mistake.

He'd been running two
sets of books

out of Chemical, New York.

So when it looked like I
had paid $20,000 in taxes

on one set,
the exact same check

went to pay $20,000
of his taxes.

- [Jamie Yadoff] She's
literally back at square one.

And meanwhile, during all
this now, her mom is sick.

(gentle piano music)

- [Janis] Got on the phone with
the IRS agent, Mr. Granite,

you cannot make that up, and
his first words to me were,

"Fuck you.
I know about you artists.

Fuck you."

And I said, "Look, I'm
sole support for my mother.

She's got multiple sclerosis.

I need $500 a month to
send her."

And he said, "Fuck you."

I had a Bosendorfer piano
that I had looked for

for three years and waited
for for three years,

and I sold it so I'd have
money to send my mother money.

And by then,
I had lost everything,

but my instruments, to the IRS.

So, pretty soon, there
was no money left at all.

- [Al Hagaman] She was in
dire financial situations.

Really, by the time that
Janis and I

started working together,
our next game plan was,

"Okay, how do we start to
build some

new intellectual properties to
try to get you out of this?"

(acoustic blues music)

- [Local TV news Reporter] When
things fell apart for Janis,

she needed to find a place to
pull her life back together.

She had fame, she had
a fortune and lost it.

What she needed was to remember

why she became a songwriter
in the first place.

She found that answer
in Nashville.

- [Janis] At the time,
Nashville was very much
a place that

you didn't admit to going,
unless you were a country
singer.

I took a flight down there,
and I hit the tarmac,

and I thought, "I'm home."

♪ I've been round a hard road ♪

♪ Rough times behind ♪

♪ Rough times ahead ♪

- [Robert K. Oermann]
Janis treated herself like

a brand new artist,

when she came here.

She was building herself
back up from scratch,

and the very,
very wise thing she did

was hanging out at the Bluebird
Cafe, night after night.

That is the songwriting mecca.
That's like ground zero.

♪ If you'll call my
name, I'll ring you in ♪

♪ Set you down in the
country town with the sky ♪

- [Amy Kurland] Don Schlitz
was playing with his friends,

and I got the word Janis was
coming down to see the show.

After that,
every time they would play,

she would come to hear them,

and maybe get invited
up to do a song or two.

- [Oermann] The community went,

"Oh, here's this great
big pop icon

who really likes what we do
and respects who we are."

- [Kathy Mattea] This town
was a perfect fit for Janis,

because this is a town
that reveres

songwriting and songwriters,

and it's a place where
she could meet her match.

- [Marti Jones] Kye Fleming
had written

a lot of country hits.

"I Was Country When Country
Wasn't Cool".

"Sleeping Single in
a Double Bed".

♪ Sleeping single in
a double bed ♪

♪ Thinking over things I
wish I'd said ♪

♪ I should've held you but I
let you go ♪

♪ Now I'm the one sleeping
all alone ♪

- [Jones] Kye had that
sort of commercial edge,

having been a writer in
Nashville for some time,

and having hits.

- [Kye Fleming] I was
writing with Don Schlitz.

MCA was his company
and he said, "You know,

they're sending Janis Ian here
to write with a few people."

And he said,
"Would you like to meet her?"

And I said, (scoffs), "Yeah,
of course."

- [Hagaman] If you're a
songwriter, you know Janis Ian.

If you're a songwriter,

you know the integrity
of her writing.

And so the opportunity to
sit in a room with this woman

and co-write with her
was an honor.

- [Kye] Janis had a
friend, her name was Mary.

She had a restaurant
called Options.

And we would go there
for lunch every day.

It wasn't doing well.

Tough business.

- [Janis] We walked in one
day and Mary was really down

and I said, "What's wrong?"

And she said, "I'm gonna
lose the restaurant.

Why should I stay alive?

I mean, I'm not doing
anything in the world."

- [Kye] She started talking
about committing suicide.

And I knew that Janis
and I were both feeling

the same thing and it was
like, "What do we do here?"

- [Janis] We said the usual
platitudes and she said,

"No, no,
it's different for you.

Whether you have children or
not, your work's gonna live.

But I haven't left a mark."

- [Kye] What do you say
after that?

What did we need to
say to Mary?

(gentle acoustic guitar music)

- [Janis] I was sitting there
with a guitar and I said,

"Man, some people's
lives just...

I don't know, some people's
lives just run down."

And Kye said, "Some people's
lives run down like clocks."

(Janis Ian, Kye Fleming,
"Some People's Live")

♪ Some people's lives ♪

♪ Run down like clocks ♪

♪ One day, they stop ♪

♪ That's all they've got ♪

♪ Some lives wear out ♪

♪ Like old tennis shoes ♪

♪ No one can use ♪

♪ It's sad but it's true ♪

♪ Didn't anybody tell them? ♪

♪ Didn't anybody see? ♪

♪ Didn't anybody love them ♪

♪ Like you love me? ♪

- [Kye] We were looking
for this clincher

that we hadn't found.

And one day, we were
driving down the interstate,

and it just popped in.

♪ And some people's lives ♪

♪ Are as cold as their lips ♪

♪ They just need to be kissed ♪

- [Stephen Holden]
"Some people's lives are

as cold as their lips.

They just need to be kissed."

Oh, that's just fantastic.

It's one of the great
songs of all time.

I heard Janis and Kye sing it
together at the Bottom Line.

- [Don Dixon] The Bottom Line,
at the time in the late '80s,

was an iconic club where
Bruce Springsteen

played one of his first shows.

♪ Some people's lives ♪

♪ Fade like their dreams ♪

♪ Too tired to rise ♪

- [Dixon] I'm not an easy
crier, but my goodness,

you just could not help
it, it was so beautiful.

- [Holden] It was magic,
and I immediately,

immediately actually,

sent it to Bette Midler,
who I knew,

in my heyday as an A&R man.

(Bette Midler singing)

♪ Some people laugh ♪

♪ When they need to cry ♪

- [Janis] Bette's album was
heard by millions of people.

And I remember that we
went to Mary's,

to her restaurant
with a guitar.

- [Kye] We sat there and said,

"We want to play you something.

And here's your song."

♪ Some people ask ♪

♪ If the tears have to fall ♪

♪ Then why take your chances ♪

♪ Why bother at all ♪

- [Kye] We played it for her.

She just busted out in
this smile.

"That's my song?

That's my song."

- [Janis] I told her,

"You don't know the
ripples you're creating.

Now you've made a change
in the world."

♪ 'Cause that's all they need ♪

- [Janis] Kye Fleming is
probably the greatest lyricist

I've ever worked with.

She made me think about my work

in a way that I had
never thought about it.

Just basics that I
hadn't learned,

like if you're gonna hit
the audience

with a really heavy line, give
them another couple of lines

that aren't so deep so that
they have time to recover.

- [Kye] We were writing
every day,

and it was just total
inspiration.

And what is inspiration,

except being filled with love?

And of course, we fell in love.

- [Janis] We ended up
living together

for two and a half years.

When we started
living together,

she was coming out of
a Pentecostal family.

It was hard for her,
because she hadn't grown up

in a culture where
people were as accepting

as the culture I grew up in.

- [Kye] I was always conflicted
about the sexual part,

and of course, I felt like I
had to hide it from my parents.

They wouldn't understand that.

- [Janis] Her mother, Verda,
was so upset.

She got on her knees
for three days,

and she prayed to God to
change Kye.

- [Kye] I knew it was okay.

How can love be wrong?

(Kye sighs)

(Janis Ian and Kye Fleming,
"Hearts Take Time")

♪ Heart takes time ♪

♪ No calls anymore ♪

♪ Just four walls and a lock
on the door ♪

♪ No denying you're in
hiding but that's all right ♪

♪ Hearts take time ♪

- [Kye] I ended up in
another relationship,

and that broke us up.

Janis and me.

- [Janis] We were
supposed to keep writing,

even though we'd broken up.

(chuckles) That's what you
think is going to happen.

So naive.

♪ One day, they'll be
someone to love on again ♪

- [Amy Kurland] When
their relationship ended,

when Janis wanted to get
out of herself,

this was the place she
would come.

- [Janis] I was at the
Bluebird Cafe and I watched

a young writer from a strip
mining town in Virginia

named Lance Cowan, sing a
song about the Holocaust.

And I thought, "Here's this
kid from West Virginia,

not a Jewish bone in his body,

and he's writing about this
subject, and I'm silent."

And I walked out of
there, feeling so ashamed

that I hadn't dared
to write it,

because I grew up on
stories of the Holocaust,

and I knew a lot of people
with tattoos,

but I'd never felt myself
qualified.

So, I started this song, and
it was a hard song to write,

because what do you say?

(Janis Ian, "Tattoo")

♪ Her new name was tattooed
to her wrist ♪

♪ It was longer than
the old one ♪

♪ Sealed in the silence
with a fist ♪

♪ This night will be
a cold one ♪

♪ Centuries live in her eyes ♪

♪ Destiny laughs over
jack-booted thighs ♪

♪ Work makes us free,
says the sign ♪

♪ Nothing leaves here alive ♪

♪ Tattoo ♪

- [Janis] I know what
it is to feel trapped.

I know what it is to
feel terrified.

I know what it is to feel
powerless.

Not to that extent, not
in that circumstance,

but I know those feelings, and
so I can use those feelings

as part of being truthful
in the song.

♪ It gets darker every night ♪

♪ Spread-eagled out among
the stars, she says ♪

♪ Somewhere in this tunnel
lives a light ♪

♪ Still my beating heart ♪

- [Jamie Yadoff] That song,
whenever she sings it,

always gets me.

We had family who were
lost in the Holocaust

and that's something we
held onto.

We knew that that could
happen at any time.

It's our history but
it's also our present.

♪ Surgeons took the mark but
they could not take it far ♪

♪ It was written on her heart ♪

♪ Written on her empty heart ♪

♪ Tattooed ♪

- [Oermann] Janis had
severe health problems

when she moved here.

And so part of coming
to Nashville was also
to recuperate.

- [Janis] I was diagnosed
with chronic fatigue syndrome.

I couldn't drive,
I couldn't think.

I was in pain all the
time. It was horrible.

And I complained to a friend
that I needed somebody

to play chess with and
she said,

"Oh, I have a friend
named Pat."

So, I called her and I said,
"Hey, this is Janis Ian.

Our mutual friend says maybe
you'd play chess with me?

I'm kind of housebound right
now, but I'd love to meet you."

So, the next day,
I get this message

and it's on my answering
machine and it says,

"Hi, this is Pat Snyder and I
understand that you called me,

but I didn't realize because
I thought,

'Why would Janis Ian be
calling me?'

So and I would love to
meet you,

but I have to go now 'cause
my dryer is on fire."

We went out for dinner
and Pat said something

about being on a date and I
said, "It can't be a date.

You didn't bring flowers."

And she said, "Excuse me", and
she went into the parking lot

and she brought back a leaf
and she said,

"I couldn't find any flowers,
but here."

(Janis Ian,
"Through the Years")

♪ Through the years we've
been happy ♪

♪ Through the years we've
been sad ♪

♪ And sometimes feeling lucky ♪

♪ Was the only luck we had ♪

- [Kathy Mattea] They were
just perfect for each other.

It was just each met their
person, finally, you know?

- [Janis] I had paid
off the last of the IRS.

After 13 years,
I was out of debt.

I could start working again,
but I needed an album.

I was telling Pat about it
and saying,

"You know, I've got this song,
'Tattoo',

that I desperately want heard.

I've got this song,
'Some People's Lives',

I desperately want heard,
and I can't get a publisher

or a record company to
save my life."

- [Ann Powers] Ageism, for
women in the pop world,

starts at, well, you could
say it starts at, like,

age 28 or age 30,

but certainly by the time
you're 35,

you're not as saleable
in many people's eyes.

- [Janis] Pat said, "What would
it cost to make an album?"

And I said, "$30,000, $35,000?"

And she said, "How much of a
second mortgage can we get?"

(Janis Ian, "Breaking Silence")

♪ Come into my solitude ♪

♪ Though I weary be ♪

♪ Come into my tenderness ♪

♪ Dream along with me ♪

♪ Listen to the whispers sing ♪

♪ Listen to the singers shout ♪

♪ Come into my solitude ♪

♪ Me and my big mouth ♪

- [Al Hagaman] What I recall
about "Breaking Silence"

is the intimacy

of the record from its
creation to its content.

Very few of those songs

would have ever had a prayer
on US radio.

- [Janis] A friend of mine
who I was working with

at the time called me and said,

"'Breaking Silence', just
nominated for a Grammy."

And I was like,
"Are you serious?"

"Yeah, Best Folk and
Best Engineered."

So, all of a sudden,
people were buying it.

♪ Breaking silence ♪

- [James Reed] "Silence"
was such an important

part of the discourse

around gay and lesbian
issues at that time.

Think about don't ask,
don't tell.

- [Bill Clinton] Most
homosexuals would probably
not declare

their sexual orientation
openly,

thereby making an already
hard life even more difficult.

- [Janis] It was '91,
Pat and I were together.

We were out to everybody.

So, I was all set to be out to
the world, but Urvashi Vaid,

who was then head
of the National Gay Liberation
Task Force,

took me to lunch and asked me
to wait until I had an album.

♪ Thought I was the only one ♪

♪ Thought I was the only ♪

♪ Thought I was the only,
only one ♪

She said, did I realize
that three out of every ten

teenage suicides or attempted
suicides

were because the child thought
that they might be gay?

And she said, "Just
imagine some 16-year-old

saying to their parents,
'I'm gay.'

By the way, your favorite
artist is also gay."

So, I waited until
"Breaking Silence".

♪ Breaking silence ♪

- [Reed] The idea that here
was a major songwriter saying

"I'm going to break
the silence",

I thought that was very
powerful.

- [Howard Stern] Listen.
This is a story about

how you felt at 17.

You couldn't get guys, true?
- [Janis] Right.

- [Stern] You were not....
- [Janis] Couldn't get girls.

- [Stern] Couldn't get
girls or guys.

You couldn't talk about the
fact that you were a lesbian,

or else you would've been
the outcast of the school.

- [Janis] Oh, definitely. I
think I would've been dead.

- [Stern] You were
having lesbian feelings?

- [Janis] Yeah.

- [Janis] I went ahead and
did Entertainment Weekly

and did Leno

and did all of the various
shows and said, "I am gay."

- [Stern] I wanna explore
sexuality next.

- [Janis] Not a problem.
- [Stern] With Janis Ian.

She has a brand new CD out.

- [Kathy Mattea] It was not
cool to be out of the closet,

in those years

- [Jon Vezner] I'm not
saying she was ostracized,

but it definitely affected her.

- [Janis] I remember living
with Pat in Nashville,

afraid to put my arm around
her in the movie theater,

afraid to hold hands
walking on the street.

All of those things where
you go, "I won't be afraid"

and you go ahead and do it,

because you're not gonna let
the world do that to you.

Then you get a Matthew Shepard,

and you realize how
tenuous your position is.

- [Reporter] Some say what
happened at this fence post

in the cold and barren
foothills of the Rockies

was a hate crime.

Others try to pass it
off as just a robbery.

The one thing that's clear
is that what happened

to Matthew Shepard was
horribly brutal.

- [Janis] Matthew Shepard
met a couple of guys in a bar

who offered him a lift and
then proceeded to hang him

from a barbed wire fence and
beat him until he was dead,

because he was gay.

When that happened, every gay
person in the world flinched.

(Janis Ian, "Matthew")

♪ Footsteps on gravel at
the neighborhood bar ♪

♪ Things start to unravel,
then they go too far ♪

♪ The sound of pain ♪

♪ Written on the wind ♪

♪ Fades to gray ♪

♪ And then goes dim ♪

- [Janis] As a Jew, I
was raised to believe

that if I didn't stand up
for the rights of others,

there would be nobody to
stand up for my rights,

when they came for me.

And I think that's true
of a gay person, too.

- [James Reed] She turned
this horrific moment

into a very pointed

and very poignant commentary on

what does it mean to be a man.

♪ What makes a man a man ♪

♪ The cut of a coat ♪

♪ The hint of a tan ♪

♪ It's not who you love ♪

♪ But whether you can ♪

- [Janis] "What makes
a man a man?"

I tried to keep that
the focus of the song.

To really just make it a song
where the questions are asked.

- [Reed] It's not who
you love, but if you can.

♪ That makes a man ♪

♪ A man ♪

- [Ann Powers] "Matthew"
is on a great album

called "Billie's Bones"

that Janis made here
in Nashville.

She also started her own label,

which is something that a lot
of artists today are doing,

in order to get their
music out.

- [Reed] Another way that
Janis Ian really

spoke to LGBTQ listeners

was through this column
that she had

for the Advocate magazine.

And it was the first time I
realized how funny she was.

Later, I would discover
through songs

like "Married in London"
that she has a very wicked

sense of humor, a very
barbed sense of humor.

(Janis Ian,
"Married in London")

♪ We're married in London
but not in New York ♪

(audience laughs)

♪ Spain says we're Kosher,
the States say we're pork ♪

(audience laughs)

♪ We wed in Toronto,
the judge said Amen ♪

♪ And when we got home,
we were single again ♪

(audience laughs)

(audience applauds)

[Janis] I'd been playing
in England,

when the UK made gay
marriage legal.

And then I read on the CNN
news scrawl

that we were about to be
legal in Canada.

So, I texted Pat and I said,

"Do you wanna get
married while I'm there?"

And she said, "Okay."

♪ Thank God I'm not
Catholic, I'd be a mess ♪

♪ Trying to figure out what
to confess ♪

- [Malcolm Sinclair]
Janis's entourage showed up,

wearing Hawaiian shirts

and enjoying the moment.

Janis and Pat walked
through the door,

and I suddenly thought
to myself,

"Holy smokes,
I've got Janis Ian,

(chuckles) 'At Seventeen',
standing right in front of me."

- [Janis] We had a
New York Times photographer,
because Pat,

who refuses to take photos,
or be in the press, said,

"I want to be a gay couple

in the New York Times
marriage section."

- [Colin Campbell] This was
going to be the first same-sex

Sunday Wedding Vows column the
New York Times had ever done.

I remember really well,
George R.R. Martin was

one of their best men.

- [Janis] The idea of getting
married as a gay person

was so foreign.

We kept thinking that it
wasn't going to mean that much.

Everything was going to
be the same.

We were really shocked when
we both started weeping,

after the ceremony.

♪ But love has no colors
and hearts have no sex ♪

♪ So, love where you can
and fuck all the rest ♪

(audience cheers and applauds)

- [Reed] Her legacy is
not just as a songwriter,

but as an LGBTQ icon.

- I had been keeping a
whiteboard of new songs

for five or six years,

and each time I wrote
a song that I felt was

the best I would ever be
able to do,

I would put it up on
the white board.

Songs fell off, songs
went on, and I thought,

"Someday, if I have 11 songs
that I think are impeccable,

I'll make a record."

And then in the middle
of COVID,

I looked up and there
were 11 songs.

But there were no studios open.

I recorded at friends' houses,
into their tape recorders.

And I wrote the title song,

two weeks before we went
to mastering.

I'm gonna sing a few
songs from my new album,

titled appropriately enough,

"The Light at the End
of the Line".

I'm gonna have a good
time. I hope you do, too.

(gentle acoustic guitar music)

- [Debra Hyslop] The Light
at the End of the Line tour

is Janis's farewell tour.

She really wanted to
spend time with her fans,

and to thank her fans.

- [Janis] I have people
who have followed me

and supported me

since I was 14, 15 years old.
That's an incredible honor.

(Janis Ian, "The Light
at the End of the Line")

♪ You were there when I
laughed ♪

♪ You were there when I cried ♪

♪ You were there as I tell
you goodbye ♪

- [Mattea] I got an email
from Janis

a few weeks ago and she said,

"I just wanted to share
something with you.

Do you have a good doctor?
'Cause I'm having some
trouble."

- [Janis] I got laryngitis and
I thought it was laryngitis.

I was gonna rest for a couple
of days, and then one night,

I woke up and there was
a knife in my throat.

It felt like somebody had
just thrown some knives in it.

And I thought, "Okay, this
is part of the laryngitis."

I got up, I took a couple
of Tylenol, I went to bed.

My voice didn't come back.

Didn't come back,
didn't come back.

I went to a local doctor.

Finally, in real desperation,
I called Joan Baez.

Her otolaryngologist
recommended someone in Tampa,

about an hour from where
I live and she took film

of me singing and she said
immediately,

"You've got vocal scarring.

You've got scarring on
your right vocal cord."

So, that Monday, I saw
the speech pathologist,

and I asked her outright,
I said,

"Am I ever gonna sound like
myself again?"

And she said, "No."

- [Hyslop] It's hard to
actually describe it.

Tours get canceled. I get that.

But for it to be someone at
the end of her touring career

and not being able to have
any kind of resolution

is a little shocking.

- [Janis] I can't hold my
notes. I can't stay in tune.

I'm just flailing, 'cause I
don't know where to put it.

I know intellectually that
there is nowhere to put it.

I know that.

I know that this is just a
cataclysmic event in my life.

That to anybody else
sounds like,

"Oh, you can't sing anymore,
well, you can still talk.

You can still write.
You can still play."

Yeah, I could still do
all of those things,

but I can't sing and I've sung

since I was two-and-a-half,
three-years-old

with my dad,
at Workman's Circle meetings,

sitting on Pete Seeger's
knee, I've always sung.

(gentle acoustic guitar music)

(Janis Ian, "Tea & Sympathy")

♪ I don't want to ride
the milk train anymore ♪

♪ I'll go to bed at nine ♪

♪ And waken with the dawn ♪

♪ And lunch at half past noon ♪

♪ Dinner prompt at five ♪

♪ The comfort of a few old
friends long past their prime ♪

♪ Pass the tea and sympathy ♪

♪ For the good old days
long gone ♪

♪ Let's drink a toast to those
who most ♪

♪ Believe in what they've won ♪

♪ It's a long,
long time till morning ♪

♪ Plays wasted on the dawn ♪

♪ I'll not write another line ♪

♪ For my true love is gone ♪

Look at this guitar.
It's amazing.

This guitar is amazing.

This guitar is older than I am.

This guitar is just
stunning. Look at that.

Look at this.
Look at all of this.

I was playing it and I was
just crying and my wife said,

"Why is it all pitted there?"

And I said, "Well, that's
how I learned to play."

And she said "I thought you
learned to play
on the strings?"

And I said, "Well, that's what
happens when you're learning

to play with a pick and your
pick keeps falling onto it,

and smacking it."

My wife, who had worked in
the Vanderbilt Archives,

forced me to start
keeping things.

I used to just throw
everything away,

and Pat was just horrified.

I started keeping them
and I looked up one day

and I had 200 boxes.

(acoustic guitar strums)

And it's just...

It's almost like playing
a bongo, or a conga.

You know how you go,
like that, on those?

I never went to school.
I left in 10th grade.

So, I didn't have an alma
mater to leave my archives to.

So, I was having lunch
with Teresa Kash Davis,

who works with Berea and I
love Berea,

because every student
attends tuition-free.

So, just put this finger
back there.

Like me, who started
out on a chicken farm,

a lot of students come from
rural areas.

Like my dad,
they are the first people

to attend college in
their families.

They're in college because
this is a stepping stone

to a better future.

There you are!

So, I was talking to Teresa,
and I started thinking about it

and I said, "Look,
why don't I just donate

my archives to Berea?"

And what I wanted them to do
was to communicate a life,

not my life, but the life
of the times I lived in.

(Janis Ian, "Still Standing")

♪ See these lines on my face ♪

♪ They're a map of where
I've been ♪

- [Mattea] A lot of us
that have been doing

this for a long time,

we're afraid that we
won't know who we are,

when we're not doing it.

- [Peter Cunningham] We get
knocked off our pedestals,

but Janis has the ability to
be resilient.

- [Robert Oermann] She's
got an inner fiber of steel.

She will always be a writer.

♪ And I could not
trade a line ♪

♪ Make it smooth and fine ♪

♪ Or pretend that time
stands still ♪

♪ I want to rest my soul ♪

♪ Here where it can grow
without fear ♪

♪ Another line, another year ♪

♪ I'm still standing here ♪

- [Guthrie] Janis's
music will be

around for a very long time,

because there's a creativity
there, there's a power there.

- [Baez] This meaningful
little woman

wrote giant works of art.

She's true to her music
and true to herself.

♪ I'm still standing here ♪

♪ I'm still standing here ♪

♪ I'm still standing here ♪

♪ I'm still standing here ♪

♪ I'm still standing here ♪

(audience cheers and applauds)

(audience cheers and applauds)