Mimi's question of the year

[Eva]

WHAT IS IT FOR YOU, RUDIES, THAT MAKES JANIS SO SPECIAL?
Before I had seen Janis live or learned about her website. Before I knew about her creating and work for the Pearl Foundation. Before I knew how Janis is towards her fans. When I only knew her music. What was it then that made Janis so special?

Well Mimi, Janis' music has been with me for a long time. Through all my hard times in life and with all my happy times in life. Her songs are about life and I recognise things from my life in her lyrics. Also I feel in her lyrics that she cares about people. I find her lyrics well-written in a more technical sense. And I adore the little things inbetween where I can just feel Janis has a wonderful sense of humour. I absolutely love Janis' singingvoice. I love the music too. But I don't know enough about music in a technical way to tell you what it is. What I like in any case is that I can listen to the music. Just sit down and listen. Lovely... There is probably much more. But it has been already hard enough to put this in words in English.

Eva

[Mimi]

What you wrote comes quite near to what I've felt from the beginning. Recognizing in her lyrics experiences I made in my own life. "Still waiting for love" or "Honor them all" (just for example) are very special, very important for me. Perhaps Janis' lyrics meet me in a more direct way than other songwriters did before. And I'm sure too, that it was the feeling that Janis is in a way caring for other people by her songs, that she does not only write and sing for herself, that she has a caring view on the world and other people. OMG it's so hard to put all this in English words ... it would be hard enough in German...
And it's her wonderful sense of humour that hit me first with FINB. I listened to it for the first time and just loved it.

Mimi

[Randy & Betty in Pa]

Mimi...

Just wait til you see her live in concert!!! :o

Best

R. from pa

[Mimi]

Randy, IT already happened twice last October in the Netherlands!!! :) :) :)
And it was just great! I'll never forget these shows and it won't be the last ones!

Mimi

Happy New Year!

[amelio747]

What makes Janis so special for me is her no messing around attitude! What I mean by that is her music doesn't appear to have motives. She is purely just a true performer. The first song I heard by Janis was 'At 17' and I thought at the time: "wow what a clever heartfelt song". She strikes this balance without being pretencious but with enough feeling and insterest, for those who are willing to listen. She has this knack of being delicate and fun at the same time with her songs - in fact I would say she is amazing at this. Even in the early songs when she is clearly trying to instill some message - whether you dig it or not there is so much passion and musicality to apprecciate. ;) Ok I could ramble on more but I've had a few glasses of wine therefore I wont.

[amelio747]

Right just to add to that - I think many of her songs have messages in them! But, her earlier songs have more so of a protest theme about them.

[Eva]

She strikes this balance without being pretencious but with enough feeling and insterest, for those who are willing to listen. She has this knack of being delicate and fun at the same time with her songs - in fact I would say she is amazing at this.
Yes, I agree here Amelio. I just couldn't find the right words. Thanks!

Eva

[Dee]

WHAT IS IT FOR YOU, RUDIES, THAT MAKES JANIS SO SPECIAL?

For me it's many things.

Top among them has to be her courage to present herself honestly – to her fans and to the world. I discovered that aspect about her early on after finding the web site, reading her usually hilarious Advocate magazine articles (http://janisian.com/articles-advocate.html), and then taking a deep breath and signing onto the (then) message board after seeing how she herself actually posted things on it. That came as a major shock to me. Here was someone whose work I'd admired for years acting like a person instead of standing apart behind an image. Unheard of!

Really all I wanted to do was drop her a note to tell her what her music had meant to me in my life, but what followed became years of interacting with other fans the world over, if only in cyber space for the most part. People who for the most part didn't care that I'm Gay or live with HIV. Most of that was new to me and it's all because of Janis Ian and the type of people she attracts.

Early on I often posted that she was "kind & lovely" and I still feel that way about her today. Plus, she never once tried to kill me for writing parodies of her songs. :p

Then there's the music. Like others, my real exposure to Janis came by the song At Seventeen. I can still picture the first time I heard it. It was Summer 1975, and I was 15. I had just come back from bike riding with some neighbour friends and heard it on the car radio in our driveway. This voice I heard was like a magnet. I had to hear more, so got in the car and listened as closely as I could. The things she was singing about were things in MY life! At the end I caught the singer's name and the rest as they say is history.

I'll leave it at that for now, before this post becomes Volume One of my own autobiography. ;)

[Amy in Vermont]

First it was the the songs. Society's Child. Here was someone writing honestly about an uncomfortable topic that we all needed to be pushed to think about. Think about it. It was the 60's. Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were still alive when this was released. The world was a very different place.

It was Society's Child that drew me in, because it was a hit, it was controversial and I was cool. It was a must own recording in its day, especially for a Jewish teen in a liberal household. It was an added bonus that Janis and I shared the same birthday.

But the rest of the album had as much to offer this 14 year old. Here was the beginning of the soundtrack of my life. So much of what Janis wrote seemed to be about me even then.

And that's the crux of it, I think. Each of us finds some part of our selves in the concepts and emotions that Janis so eloquently puts into lyric and so masterfully sets to music. She captures the sad moments, the painful feelings. But she also grabs the high spots, the smiles and the laughter. She does for me what I do not have the talent or skill to do.

Little did any of us know, back then, where all that would lead. Janis's music has continued to chronicle my life, right down to Breaking Silence being released at the exact time I was coming out. Who knew there would be the internet and MP3's and Janis touring, 40 years later. Who knew we would be able to hug Janis after every concert and she would know some of us by name.

So what it all boils down to is: Janis Ian is real good folk!

[Eva]

She does for me what I do not have the talent or skill to do.
Yes! Indeed. Uh-uh. Exactly what I wanted to say!

Eva

[saxman]

i think for me it is her Hair , it matches my beard. oh and the total Musician Janis is.

[Darlene]

What makes Janis Ian so special.
Well I like so many others was introduced to Janis by the song "At Seventeen" I loved it and I loved her. I saw her on Saturday Night Live and she and her music were so beautiful. I saw her on the Grammys and I bought an eight-track of "Between The Lines" I sang every song, knew all the words, then a disaster happened I put the eight-track on the dash of my car, it melted! I could not find a replacement no matter how much or where I looked. I would ask people about Janis Ian and those uncultured members of society did know about the greatest singer, song writer, I had ever listened to. My life turned and changed but I never forgot that wonderful singer. My daughter fixed me a place on my space and I was looking for a picture of one of my favorites from years gone by and I looked for a picture of Janis Ian and what I found thrilled me beyond belief. There she was, my "idol" and she had changed with age just as I had changed and I loved it. But that voice I had loved so long go was the same, the beautiful music was there. Oh, my heart skipped a beat, actually several beats. At the beginning of December I found this board. It has been a life line for me. No matter what time of the day it is there is someone else is there just looking or posting. We all have at least one thing in common we love Janis Ian. So Thank you Janis! And thank you rudies! Happy New Year Everyone!

[Dee]

i think for me it is her Hair , it matches my beard.

I love that, Mike! :D

Happy 2007 to you.