Janis Ian Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Aida Pavletich

Critical Essay by Aida Pavletich

[In the early 1960s, the genre of teen songs had "the boy-friend" as their central theme. The demons of teendom were the other girls. Parents] were another conflicting force. Her parents usually disapproved of Jimmy or Eddie or Johnny, and made vague but forceful class distinctions to keep the lovers apart. Their objections were met with either rebellion or death. Only Janis Ian capitulated in "Society's Child," breaking the mold. (p. 77)

Outside of a few songs written by Shirley Owens and the Shirelles, Shirley Ellis' dance numbers, and a few songs Lesley Gore wrote after the teen vogue had subsided [in the late sixties], the majority of the teen singers were interpreters of other people's material. An adult, predominantly male sensibility codified the teen genre laws.

George [Shadow] Morton discovered and produced the one exception, Janis Ian, the prodigious teenaged singer-songwriter whose folk-based melodies and social concern went beyond...
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