Societys child my autobiography analysis
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Book Review: &#;Society&#;s Child&#; by Janis Ian
This is another review of another book I picked up a couple week&#;s ago at a used book store for $5 &#; Society&#;s Child: my autobiography by Janis Ian. Now here&#;s a strange little twist&#;I follow Janis on Facebook, but inom couldn&#;t tell you why or when I started. I just do. I don&#;t own any of her albums, nor have I ever followed her career. She&#;s just been kinda there&#;and I do enjoy her posts. So, when I saw this book, I guessed it was about time I got to know her a little better.
You know the story&#;little Jewish girl from New York makes it big and leads a fabulous, glamorous life filled with the very best of everything? Well, this ain&#;t that story! This is the story of a young girl from a family where her father was blacklisted during the McCarthy era forcing him to find a new job and move his family every two years. It&#;s the story of an awkward 15 year old that wrote her first hit song &#;Society&
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Janis Ian's early life and musical beginnings form the cornerstone of her memoir "Society's Child," painting a vivid picture of the making of a prodigy. Born in , Janis was raised in a family that was intellectual, political, and nurturing of her nascent talents. Her parents, Victor and Pearl Fink, were progressive educators who fostered an environment of curiosity and learning. This atmosphere would be integral to Janis's development, both as a person and as an artist. Growing up in a household where music and books were as common as air, Janis was surrounded by artistic influences from a young age. Her father was a music teacher who played the piano, filling their home with the sounds of classical, jazz, and folk music. This eclectic mix laid the groundwork for Janis’s own musical tastes and aspirations. It wasn’t long before Janis herself felt the irresistible pull of music. As a child, she was drawn to the piano, picking out tunes bygd ear and experimenting with notes and chords.
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COPYRIGHT NOTICE
(originally appeared in Shindig! issue #58)
A listener in discovering Janis Ian’s ‘67 hit ‘Society’s Child’ might well hear it as the musical equivalent of a fly in amber: a well-preserved relic from a distant time when interracial relationships were shocking or even illegal. Some might argue that racial discrimination has diminished since then; after all, a black man is the president of the United States, and a Muslim son of Pakistani immigrants is the Mayor of London. But the racial conflicts that have erupted in the US and elsewhere over the past five decades &#; the Watts riots, the Rodney King trial, the shootings that fueled the Black Lives Matter movement &#; show that the prejudice Ian portrayed in ’67 is still very much with us.
Ian was a year-old high school student when she wrote ‘Society’s Child’. Because of the song’s first-person perspective, and because of her age, many assumed that ‘Society’s Child’ was based on events in her own life. But Ian e