Breaking the Silence

Janis Ian documentary a must watch

First things first.

I’ll admit before I watched “Breaking Silence,”the award-winning documentary inspired by Janis Ian’s autobiography “Society’s Child” (that won a GRAMMY in 2013 for Best Spoken Word Album), I knew little about this singer-songwriter besides her being one of my father’s favourites. It was a pleasure and apropos to share this film recently with my dad at my hometown indie theatre to learn more about this trailblazing artist. I highly recommend this documentary that sheds long overdue light on the fascinating, and often heart-breaking, journey of Janis Ian.

Society’s Child

Flash back to the mid-1960s. A 14-year-old girl, raised on a farm in rural New Jersey, writes “Society’s Child (Baby I’ve Been Thinking).” The lyrics come to the teenager during a bus ride home from school while Ian observes an interracial romance between a pair of classmates a few rows in front of her and imagines the challenges this pair, and those like them, face.

The powerful song was too controversial for radio stations; they were afraid to play it fearing repercussions and backlash from listeners and advertisers during the height of the Civil Rights movement. Read the lyrics of the first verse below to sample Ian’s gift.

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
Now I could understand the tears & the 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”

Twenty-two labels turned Ian down before Verve Forecast signed her. In the studio, one producer even advised her to change the lyrics in the first verse and replace the reference to skin colour in its second line (“black as night”), telling Ian if she made this subtle change the record would go to number one. The singer-songwriter stuck to her morals. She did not want to compromise as she inherently understood how powerful this one word was to the song’s message. “Society’s Child” went to number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 and led to the songwriter’s first GRAMMY nomination.

As this song illustrates, Ian had a broader and more profound understanding of the world — even as a teenager — than many adults ever reach. She sang songs that spoke truths others were often afraid to share publicly and always commented on societal issues, never shying away from controversial topics.

Unfortunately, Ian took abuse for expressing these truths. Following the release of “Society’s Child,” she received death threats. And, at some concerts, racists interrupted performances by shouting slurs and calling her an “N-word lover!” The first time this happened caused the teenager to lay down her guitar and leave the stage to sob in her dressing room. After a pep talk from the promoter, she regained her composure and returned to play the song and finish the concert. The disrupters were removed and this was an epiphany — and a life-changing moment for the singer-songwriter — as she witnessed the power of songs to elicit change and make people stand up for their beliefs.

Chasing Another Hit; Singing Universal Truths

In 1975, Ian proved she was far from a one-hit wonder with the release of her seventh studio album Between the Lines. The record, which has now sold more than 1.9 million copies, topped the Billboard 200 and featured “At Seventeen,” which reached the third spot on the charts and spoke to anyone and everyone who has ever felt they were not part of the “cool crowd”— the misfits, the nerds, the mods and the rockers. As she tells the audience in the live performance below, the song was written about a time in her life when she was “really weird looking.” The song confronts bullying, the meanness of adolescents, and the lingering effects these formative years have. It’s an ode to “those of us who knew the pain of valentines that never came and those whose names were never called when choosing sides for basketball.” This universal appeal led to Ian’s first GRAMMY the following year for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female.

“At Seventeen” and “Society’s Child” are now enshrined in the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame.

“I wrote my first song at 12, was published at 13, made a record at 14, had a hit at 15, and was a has-been at 16. So, ‘At Seventeen’ means more to me than you can know.”

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Janis later broke the cultural boycott and went to South Africa (where her song “Fly Too High” from 1979s Night Rains hit number one) during the height of apartheid at a time when most artists boycotted the African nation; instead, Ian felt her job as an artist was bigger than a cultural boycott. She toured South Africa with the stipulation in her contract that all the venues she played had to be integrated. And, she paid the price. Following this tour, the UN banned her from working with any artists that were part of the unions she belonged to and she could not work on television or radio for a long time afterwards.

Throughout her career, Ian faced the good, the bad and the ugly of the music business — from hit songs and records to record company misogyny, embezzlement and homophobia. The songwriter was an early ally of the LGBTQ community long before that acronym was coined. As a gay woman she espoused the message we all need to hear now more than ever that “love is love” and humans have a universal right to choose who they want to spend their life with.

“Breaking Silence” is a must watch for anyone who loves music and a reminder of the power of one’s voice — and words — to make a difference, especially in these tumultuous times when freedom of expression faces suppression.

Check here for a list of upcoming “Breaking Silence” screenings.