About the artist: Janis Ian (1951) is an American singer-songwriter who was most commercially successful in the 1960s and 1970s. She released 22 studio albums, but was never able to repeat her early successes. Janis Ian currently has three songs in my list of about 200 best pop/rock songs of all time.
About the song: At seventeen is a delicate ballad from the highly successful 1975 album Between the Lines. Not only did the LP achieve platinum status, but the single At seventeen reached the USA top three and won a Grammy. Against a charming melody, she unfolds the feelings of a 17 year old ugly girl in astonishing detail. A sample from the lyrics: "To those of us who knew the pain of valentines that never came, and those whose names were never called when choosing sides for basketball", "Dreams were all they gave away for free to ugly duckling girls like me" or "And those of us with ravaged faces, lacking in the social graces, desperately remained at home, inventing lovers on the phone...". These are but a few of the many lines that strike a chord like hardly any other song. Run time 4:42.
