Several weeks ago Mark Simone interviewed Janis Ian on Saturday Night Oldies. I just completed her autobiography Society's Child that I got from the Queensborough Public Library. Janis wrote that song about interracial dating when she was 15 years old in 1966. In the book, she said she got death threats at concerts. Attitudes toward bicultural dating and marriage were much different back then. Many radio stations rfusued to play the song. Murray the K played it quite regularly on WOR-FM, but WABC did not play it until after Leonard Bernstein praised the song on TV. I distinctively remember Dan Ingram playing it for the first time and said "Don't call the radio station."
Janis wrote openly open her family, sexuality, failure to conceive a child, and an abusive husband. I highly recommend it to readers of this journal.
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