Janis Ian (b. 1951) is a U.S. songwriter, singer, musician, columnist, and … Read Full Bio ↴Janis Ian (b. 1951) is a U.S. songwriter, singer, musician, columnist, and science fiction author. Her singing career was at its height in the 1960s and 1970s, and she has continued recording into the twenty-first century. In 1975 Ian won a Grammy Award for her song, "At Seventeen".

Born Janis Eddy Fink on 7th April 1951 to a Jewish family in New York City, she was primarily raised in New Jersey, initially on a farm, and attended East Orange High School and the New York City High School of Music & Art. Her parents, Victor (a music teacher) and Pearl, ran a summer camp in upstate New York, and, in that Cold War era, were frequently under government surveillance because of their left-wing politics. (Ian alluded to these years later in her song "God and the FBI"). Young Janis admired the work of folk pioneers such as Joan Baez and Odetta. At the age of twelve, Ian wrote her first song, "Hair of Spun Gold", which was subsequently published in the folk publication Broadside and was later recorded for her debut album.

At the age of thirteen she legally changed her name to Janis Ian, using as her new last name her brother Eric's middle name. Also in that year, Ian wrote and sang her first hit single, "Society's Child (Baby I've Been Thinking)", about an interracial romance forbidden by a girl's mother and frowned upon by her peers and teachers; the girl ultimately decides to end the relationship, claiming the social norms of the day have left her no other choice. Produced by George "Shadow" Morton and released three times between 1965 and 1967, "Society's Child" finally became a national hit on its third release, after Leonard Bernstein featured it in a television special: Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution. The song's content was taboo for some radio stations, and they withdrew or banned it from their playlists; in her 2008 autobiography Society's Child, Ian recalls receiving hate mail and death threats as a response to the song, and mentions that a radio station in Atlanta that played it was burned down. In the summer of 1967, "Society's Child" reached number fourteen on the Billboard Hot 100.

Her most successful single in the United States was "At Seventeen", released in 1975, a bittersweet commentary on adolescent cruelty, the illusion of popularity, and teenage angst, as reflected upon from the perspective of a twenty-four-year-old. It reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one on the Adult Contemporary chart. It won the 1975 Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance - Female. The song's album, Between the Lines, reached number one on Billboard's Album chart. It was quickly certified gold, and later earned a platinum certification for sales of over a million copies sold in the U.S.

Ian finally became one of the first "indie artists", resurfacing in 1993, with the worldwide release of Breaking Silence and its title song about incest. She also came out as a lesbian with that release. Her most recent album, Folk Is the New Black, was released in 2006; it is the first in over twenty years for which she did all the songwriting herself.

Photographs
Janis Ian Lyrics

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Photographs of long ago
The colors fade
The wrinkles show
I loved you then
I love you still
I guess I always will

Aging hearts

And shaking knees
Moving parts
Still bend with ease
I loved you young
And age improves
The song I feel for you

You grow more beautiful
Each passing day
The lines that time withstood
You grow more beautiful
I hate to say
Well I told you so
But I knew you would

Close the light
Still the flame
Candles light
The empty frame
A photograph

Can never be
The song you are to me...

Overall Meaning

In the song "Photographs," Janis Ian sings about the passage of time and how it affects the love between two people. The first verse depicts the fading of memories, both in physical photographs and in the wrinkles on a human face. Despite the changes, the singer's love has endured, and will continue to do so. In the second verse, the lyrics contrast the limitations of an aging body with the persistence of love. Our physical abilities may decline with age, but the love between two people can actually improve with time. The singer's love interest grows more beautiful with each passing day, and the person knew all along that this would be the case.

The chorus of "Photographs" is where the singer really emphasizes the beauty of the person she is singing to. This beauty is not just skin-deep, as the lines on the person's face that time has "withstood" make them even more beautiful. The bridge of the song is where the singer really drives home the point that a photograph can never capture the full essence of a person the way that love can. Love is the "song" that the person is to the singer, and that song is constantly evolving and growing as time passes.

Line by Line Meaning

Photographs of long ago
Images of the past

The colors fade
The once vivid hues become dim

The wrinkles show
Lines of age become prominent

I loved you then
A declaration of love from the past

I love you still
A declaration of love in the present

I guess I always will
Love will remain forever

Aging hearts
Hearts that have grown old

And shaking knees
Loss of steadiness due to age

Moving parts
Limbs and organs that still function well

Still bend with ease
Easier to manage in old age

I loved you young
Expressing love to a youthful partner