Happy 74th Birthday to the great Janis Ian!

She learned the truth At Seventeen and now the great singer-songwriter Janis Ian is 74!

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 nine-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.

Now retired from touring and recording, Ian, 73, is the subject of Varda Bar-Kar’s new documentary Janis Ian: Breaking Silence.

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