"At Seventeen"
Single by Janis Ian
from the album Between the Lines
A-side	At Seventeen
B-side	"Stars"
Released	August 1975[1]
Format	Vinyl
Recorded	1974
Genre	Soft Rock, Acoustic, Adult Contemporary
Length	4:41 (album) / 3:59 (single)
Label	Columbia Records
Writer(s)	Janis Ian

"At Seventeen" is a song by Janis Ian, released in 1975 on Between the Lines (her seventh studio album) and as a single. Ian's most successful recording, the song is a commentary on adolescent cruelty, the illusion of popularity, and teenage angst, as reflected upon from the maturity of adulthood. Told from the point of view of a woman who was an "ugly duckling" as a girl and ignored while the popular (albeit supposedly shallow) girls were revered.

Contents 1 Background 2 Awards and recognition 3 In films 4 Covers 4.1 Studio albums 5 Satire 6 Notes 7 External links

[edit] Background

Janis Ian, then 22, wrote "At Seventeen" in 1973 at her mother's house over the course of three months.^[2] In her autobiography Society's Child, Ian says that the song was inspired by a newspaper article about a former teenage debutante who learned the hard way that being popular did not solve all her problems. The article included the quote, "I learned the truth at eighteen"; Ian found that the word "seventeen" worked better than "eighteen" when she tried to put this lyric with the samba-style melody she had been composing on guitar. She also says she initially did not want to record or perform the song because she felt it was far too personal to share, but eventually changed her mind after adding the song's final verse ("To those of us who knew the pain/Of Valentines that never came…").

"At Seventeen," released as the second single from Between the Lines, became Ian's first national hit single since her first hit "Society's Child (Baby I've Been Thinking)" in 1966. It peaked at #1 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart and at #3 on the Pop Singles chart in September 1975^[3][4]. It also won a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1976, beating out the likes of Linda Ronstadt, Olivia Newton-John, and Helen Reddy.^[5] and was nominated for "Record of the Year" and "Song of the Year".

Ian performed "At Seventeen" as a musical guest on the very first episode of Saturday Night Live in October 1975.^[6][7]

The song's parent album, Between the Lines, also hit #1 and earned a platinum certification for sales of one million copies. Another measure of her success is anecdotal — on Valentine's Day 1977, Ian received 461 Valentine cards, having indicated in the lyrics to "At Seventeen" that she never received any as a teenager.^[8]

[edit] Awards and recognition

In 2008, "At Seventeen" was selected to receive the Grammy Hall of Fame Award. ^[9] It is Janis Ian's second song to receive this honor, the first being "Society's Child."

[edit] In films

"At Seventeen" is featured in the movie Scotland, Pa. (2001) and can also be heard playing in the background in one scene in the 2004 movie Mean Girls. The movie, which features a character named "Janis Ian", addresses the topic of teenage cruelty and alienation. "At Seventeen" is also mentioned in Jeffrey Eugenides's 1993 novel The Virgin Suicides, where the song is used by four girls imprisoned in their own home and essentially cut off from normal adolescent experiences to communicate with the narrator and his friends. The song is featured in The Simpsons episodes "A Streetcar Named Marge" and "El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer (The Mysterious Voyage of Homer)".

The song, as performed by Tara MacLean^[10] is used in the soundtrack of the 1999 film Teaching Mrs. Tingle.^[11]

[edit] Covers

[edit] Studio albums

Hong Kong singer Rowena Cortes covered the song in her 1976 debut album Rowena Cortes (PHLP7616, House Records). Canadian singer Tara MacLean covered the song on the soundtrack of the 1999 movie Teaching Mrs. Tingle. Hong Kong folktronica duo at17 was named after the song, they also covered the song in their 2002 debut album Meow Meow Meow. Jann Arden covered the song as the second single from her 2007 album Uncover Me

Celine Dion covered the song for the December 2008 Grammy Award nominations television special.

Dutch singer Astrid Nijgh recorded a Dutch version of the song, titled "Zeventien" ("Seventeen") in 1976, translated by Herman Pieter de Boer.

Gwyneth Herbert covers the song on the album "Bittersweet and Blue". This album also includes covers of Tom Waits [Looking for the Heart of] Saturday Night" and Portishead's "Glory Box". It was released 27 Sep 2004 by Universal Classics.

[edit] Satire

In 1993, Ian went on The Howard Stern Show to do a self-parody of the song that took comedic aim at Jerry Seinfeld and his relationship with then girlfriend and lingerie designer Shoshanna Lonstein.

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• At Seventeen lyrics, janisian.com

Preceded by "I Honestly Love You" (Olivia Newton-John, 1975)

Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance 1976

Succeeded by "Hasten Down the Wind" (Linda Rondstadt, 1977)