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S39E4: Janis Ian: Breaking Silence | Clip

How Janis Ian wrote “Society’s Child”

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Janis Ian was inspired to write “Society’s Child” after observing an interracial couple on her school bus. Ian wrote the song at just 14 years old, imagining the societal pressures the couple may have been under.

TRANSCRIPT

- "Society's Child" is a great song.

You have this young girl with a guitar taking on the beast, interracial relationships.

(bus rumbling) - [Janis] I was sitting on a bus in East Orange, New Jersey.

I was 14 and I was one of, I think four, maybe five Caucasian kids in an all-Black school and neighborhood.

Very middle class, very upwardly mobile neighborhood.

But still, I was definitely the outsider.

I was on the bus watching a young couple.

He was Black and she was white, and they were young and they were holding hands, and they were just oblivious to the way people were glaring at them, not just white people.

I mean, everyone was glaring at them.

And I started thinking about how hard that was going to be and wondering whether their parents even knew that they were dating and if their parents didn't know, whether anybody on the bus was going to tell on them.

I wondered whether the girl would be able to take the pressure and in the end, I thought she probably wouldn't.