Zitat des Tages von Janis Ian:
'Society's Child' was a real hard record to start with. That's all you want is for you to put your first record out and have people screaming at you in the streets. But it taught me right away that what I was doing was valuable and important.
I bought all my friends guitars and I had a good time with my money. But then one day the IRS came knocking.
Going off the road just leaves me more time to be a writer.
I learned the truth at seventeen, That love was meant for beauty queens, And high school girls with clear skinned smiles, Who married young and then retired.
I think these last 10 years have seen just a huge shift in the psyche of this country as regards gay people. I think AIDS had a lot to do with it. So many families who really believed they'd 'never met one' were suddenly confronted with their sons becoming ill, and friends of sons. I think that brought a lot of it into the open.
I think one of the reasons musicians keep doing what they do and writers keep doing what they do, is that we're totally unsuited for anything else. And I for one am much too lazy.
I mean, I would love to have the career Joan Baez is having in Europe right now, but God knows I don't begrudge her that career.
It's what I do well - I write about things that make people uncomfortable. That's probably the only thing I do better than my peers.
Once you're halfway home, you know that you can probably get the rest of the way there.
I played for anybody and everybody from the time I started playing guitar, when I was 10 or 11.
When you're young, the goal is to have a hit. You get a little older and the goal becomes to get to make another record.
I feel I was born with the music coming to me, and that's not something to be wasted.
I've always been an avid reader. If I don't have a book in the car, I'll stop and pick one up just to have something to read. I don't even remember learning to read.
Artists are taught to be humble about their impact, especially in folk music. It's so ingrained that I have a hard time even thinking I had any impact other than what a normal hit song would have.
At the end of the day, all you can hope for is to go on. The older I get, the more I realize that just keeping on keeping on is what life's all about.
It seems to be part of the human condition to need someone you can look down on. I still don't get that one.
I see interracial couples all the time in Nashville. I'm a Jew in Nashville. I'm a gay person in Nashville. It's a non-issue in most of the time. That's a huge leap forward.
When people used to call me a political writer, it was kind of confusing because I was always much more interested in the social end of things which hinges on the political, but it isn't really part of it.
It's neat to have finally reached a point where I can accept what I was and what I am.
I was one of I think three white girls in my school. So, I was very much an outsider. And plus I was Jewish and all of my friends were black and Baptist because they listen to the coolest music. We were all listening to Ray Charles and what was then called race music.
I gave guitar lessons. I tried to join bands. My mom always said it was obvious that nothing was going to stop me.
