392: Janis Ian’s “Society’s Child”
1965 was a time of enormous racial unrest in the US: That February, Malcolm X was shot to death. That March, blacks began a march to Montgomery in support of voting rights, ending in an assault on marchers by police, hospitalizing 50 people. Given the climate, 1965 was either the best or worst time for 15-year-old Janis Ian to write and release her first hit single, “Society’s Child (Baby I’ve Been Thinking),” a song about inter-racial relationships. George “Shadow” Morton — a specialist in melodramatic teen music, having also written “Leader of the Pack” and other angsty hits — released the single three times before it finally found an audience in 1967.
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