Janis Ian was one of the authentic voices of the Sixties, one of the street kids who told it exactly as it was without any of the "poetic" trimmings. She directed her coruscating wit, gelid eye, and scolding fury as much at the opportunists of her own generation who were corrupting the dream as at the society that feared and brutally repressed anyone not stamped out by the cookie cutter. But Ian seems to have paid a high price for her own involvement and convictions. She came back about a year ago with a new album, and, aside from a lot of media palaver about her now being able to accept being a "star," it never really went anywhere beyond reminding her old fans that she was up and about again.
"Between the Lines" seems to be another water-treader, but it has one brilliant track: At Seventeen, not about Viet Nam but about an ugly duckling, is filled with the same pitiless observation and ice-hard anger as her earlier work…. A popular lyric that actually implies that someone has learned something, that things do sort themselves out, given enough time, that experience can result in wisdom. And there's not a touch of cosmic Melanie or Laura Nyro style. At Seventeen is just a simple story about a girl-woman. But then so is [Gustave Flaubert's novel] Madame Bovary.
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