Janis Ian: At Seventeen

A valentine I never sent: reflections of a ten-year-old on Janis Ian's 1975 classic

At Seventeen was the summit of confessional songwriting. For months after its release, Janis Ian could only face an audience by singing it with her eyes closed. The lyrics were dangerously revealing, an artist’s Rubicon.

But eyes open or closed, in pride or in shame, she must have known her words were going to find their way into the world. There are feelings that insist on expression. Imagine holding a bird that so desperately wanted to fly you could only hang on to it by hurting it.

At ten I was in the fourth grade. The harder scarring was still to come. From the near side of seventeen, I knew the lyrics were taboo. Ugliness and exclusion were how younger children punished each other, too. Loneliness, not being picked for basketball, valentines that never came were things you didn't talk about. Inventing lovers on the phone and cheating at solitaire in your bedroom, the same. Hot shame.

There was a whiff of cruelty and comeuppance in her lyrics, for beauty queen and ten-year-old and…