Society's Child

Janis Ian was 13 when she began working on "Society's Child," 14 when she finished. She started it while waiting outside the office of her guidance counselor, who was kind enough to call Janis in for consults every time she had a science class. After that, she wrote most of it on the school bus.

This song is about an interracial romance. Ian was living in an all-black neighborhood in East Orange, New Jersey, where she was one of five white kids in the school. In a Songfacts interview, Ian explained: "I saw it from both ends. I was seeing it from the end of all the civil rights stuff on the television and radio, of white parents being incensed when their daughters would date black men, and I saw it around me when black parents were worried about their sons or daughters dating white girls or boys. I don't think I knew where I was going when I started it, but when I hit the second line, 'face is clean and shining black as night,' it was obvious where the song was going."

The girl in the song caves to pressure and gives up on the romance. Ian told Songfacts: "I don't think I made a conscious decision to have the girl cop out in the end, it just seemed like that would be the logical thing at my age, because how can you buck school and society and your parents, and make yourself an outcast forever."