At Seventeen — Janis Ian
“At Seventeen” is sometimes described as a song about teenage angst, but I’ve never been sure that’s quite the right word.
For me, angst implies a degree of frustration, bordering on anger, and a desire to bring about tangible change…the faster the better.
There was plenty of angst in punk. And also in early rap music before it came to define itself as the home of casual misogyny and debates about who owned the coolest Bentley.
“At Seventeen” is none of those things. There’s a degree of passive, albeit unwilling, acceptance that this is just the way things are. Janis Ian is perhaps wishing things could be different, but she’s not suggesting anyone storms the barricades to support her cause, or organises a march with banners and megaphones to protest about the situation.
Janis Ian isn’t expecting the world to change to accommodate her. She’s just reporting the world as it is, and letting the listeners make up their own minds about the situation she’s singing about.
By challenging us to consider her narrative, and effectively asking us to mull over whether that is right, or fair, or decent, or proper, Janis Ian does what all great artists do, and holds up a mirror to society, hopefully making us think in ways we might not have thought before.
