The 70-year-old Janis Ian has said that the new album, The Light at the End of the Line, is going to be her last. William Dart puts up a case for hoping that it won't be.
Janis Ian Photo: © Gerard Viveiros (2013) All Rights Reserved
The Light at the End of the Line, Janis Ian’s first album of new material for 15 years, prompts me to drift back to 1966, and the 15-year-old singer’s controversial debut, the song 'Society's Child'.
This was written when America was still embroiled in the Civil Rights struggle and it took some time for some radio stations to brave up and put in on their playlists. However, Leonard Bernstein’s passionate television advocacy for both the singer and her song secured Ian a contract with one of the most pulse-conscious labels of the time — Verve-Forecast.
'Society’s Child', all these years later, still wields a considerable heft. And it certainly did in the mid-70s when I played it to my school pupils as a song of social protest, alongside others by Woody Guthrie, Phil Ochs and Leon Rosselson.
I wasn’t prepared for the reaction that came forth in class after class ... and astonished when I found students eagerly copying out the lyrics. A few asked for guitar chords, others for me to make a cassette dub off my well-worn mono vinyl. This was music that targeted its audience with the precision of a righteous stealth missile.
Janis Ian is more than just the sum total of an impressive discography. She’s a busy writer, fervent and sometimes trenchant on issues close to her heart – as witnessed by some of her pieces on LGBT issues for the American Advocate magazine a few years ago. Online, you can search out her eloquent defence of her friend Howard Stern and her extreme distaste for the straitjacket of political correctness.
In 2010 Berklee College asked her to give the Keynote address to its graduating students. This is a terrific piece of writing and delivery, generously available as a free download through the singer’s web site.
She comes up with memories of Diana Ross in disastrous diva mode along with a goosebumpy tale of French poet Charles Baudelaire. But this most practical of artists is spot on when she considers what art is actually for.
"Artists deal in making magic," she comments, "as alchemists of the soul, transmuting the ordinary happenstance of life into diamonds and emeralds. Our great strength and privilege is to hold onto the dreams of those around us, to speak for the silent, to give voice to the voiceless. So that when all hope is gone, when humanity forgets, we are there to remind them. It’s our job to grasp their longing and their yearning because they can’t do it for themselves."
Janis Ian has said that her latest album, The Light at the End of the Line, is her last. The explanation given is that she wants to spend more time on her writing, stressing how exhausting it’s been sustaining a career as an artist, manager and webmaster all rolled into one woman.
It's an album of unflinching gravitas, through the singer having lived her three score years and ten and now wishing to offer a serious, considered reflection on that experience. The album’s dozen songs emanate the glow of a life well lived.
I shouldn’t really have been surprised by the staggering vehemence of one song on the album. Titled 'Resist', it’s a stand for the women of the world and some of the appalling treatment that they’ve received from societies which should know better.
It’s a scorcher of a track, simmering up from two teasing words, goadingly repeated, into an unleashing of politico-sexual injustices. Encompassing beautifully enunciated rap alongside snarling r & b, the song is borne on a swelter of percussion, including a particularly implacable snare drum.
Perhaps the key line, repeated at some length, is “I will not disappear”, and, although Janis Ian is speaking here for the strength and resilience of her fellow women, possibly there’s also some hope that The Light at the End of the Line might not be the last that we’ll he hearing from this singular artist.
Music Details
ARTIST: Janis Ian
TITLE: Society's Child
ALBUM: Society's Child: The Verve Recordings
COMPOSER: Ian
LABEL: Polydor
ARTIST: Janis Ian
TITLE: When I was a Child
ALBUM: Society's Child: The Verve Recordings
COMPOSER: Ian
LABEL: Polydor
ARTIST: Roberta Flack
TITLE: Jesse
ALBUM: Killing Me Softly
COMPOSER: Ian
LABEL: Atlantic
ARTIST: Nina Simone
TITLE: Stars (Live at Casino Montreux)
ALBUM: The Montreux Years
COMPOSER: Ian
LABEL: Montreux Sounds
ARTIST: Janis Ian
TITLE: At Seventeen (Alt take, live '91)
ALBUM: The Bottom Line, Encore Recordings
COMPOSER: Ian
LABEL: BMG
ARTIST: Janis Ian
TITLE: Rate My Music
ALBUM: Unreleased 3: Society's Child
COMPOSER: Ian
LABEL: Rude Girl
ARTIST: Janis Ian
TITLE: I'm Still Standing
ALBUM: The Light at the End of the Line
COMPOSER: Ian
LABEL: Rude Girl
ARTIST: Janis Ian
TITLE: Summer in New York
ALBUM: The Light at the End of the Line
COMPOSER: Ian
LABEL: Rude Girl
ARTIST: Janis Ian
TITLE: Perfect Little Girl
ALBUM: The Light at the End of the Line
COMPOSER: Ian
LABEL: Rude Girl
ARTIST: Janis Ian
TITLE: Resist
ALBUM: The Light at the End of the Line
COMPOSER: Ian
LABEL: Rude Girl
