Janis Ian doesn't mince words. Like the consummate folk songwriter she's been for more than 30 years, she understands the power of vivid lyrics that tell a story.
When asked to illustrate the making of "At Seventeen," Ian's 1975 pop anthem of lost innocence, she goes right to the point."I was sitting at my mom's table in the dining room," she says from her home in Nashville. "I had a guitar on my lap and was reading The New York Times. There was an article about a debutante who said that she had learned 'the truth' at 18. I just started writing. It took about three months to write."
And a lifetime to enjoy. The poignant tune -- with its memorable opening lines "I learned the truth at 17/That love was made for beauty queens" -- struck a nerve with mid-'70s audiences. They had lived through the heady '60s and emerged wiser but perhaps weaker. "At Seventeen" reignited Ian's career after the sudden, controversial success of her 1967 interracial-relationships tune "Society's Child (Baby I've Been Thinking)."
"It would be great to be able to write something that had that big an effect on people again," she says about "At Seventeen." "But you can't try with songs like that. There's so much that goes into the making of that kind of a hit that has nothing to do with the song. I just learned early on that you just do your best. That's all you can do."
Twenty-five years after her signature song, Ian continues to write, record and perform. The New York-born artist with the soothing yet piercing soprano has a new CD to promote: "God and the FBI." The follow-up to 1997's "Hunger" is her second album for California-based Windham Hill Records.
The disc's title cut was inspired by actual FBI files Ian recently obtained. Her family had been under FBI surveillance since 1950, a year before she was born. The investigations turned up nothing. The album, which she wrote as she read the files and picked her guitar, chronicles the fear prompted by the FBI vigilance.
"It happened," she says. "You know, it's as valid as anything else. But it would be horrible to make this whole concept album about the FBI. I don't think the FBI warrants that much attention."
Ian's music, however, does merit acclaim. "God and the FBI" is yet another personal, potent piece of work for the 48-year-old singer, songwriter, pianist and guitarist.