Happy 71st Birthday to the great Janis Ian!

She learned the truth At Seventeen and now the great singer-songwriter Janis Ian is 71!

Anyone who has ever felt like an outcast can relate to her Grammy-winning classic At Seventeen. Its lyrics about teen-aged angst sure struck a cord with me when I heard them even though I wasn’t a 17 year old high school girl who never got any Valentines. I was a gay kid who didn’t get a Valentine from who I really wanted: the high school quarterback!

Miss Ian, a 9-time Grammy nominee, burst onto the scene in the late 60s when she was just a teenager with Society’s Child, a song she wrote about an interracial romance. She released her autobiography in and named it after her first big hit.

She still records and came out as a lesbian in 1993.

Here is Janis performing At Seventeen in the 70s and Society’s Child as a teen in the 60s. Wow!