I thought it was worth sharing some songs from Janis Ian’s 2000 album God and the FBI which I’ve been listening to recently. I don’t remember why I originally got that album, but the thing which stands out to me now is how much Ian sounds like she’s enjoying herself.
Janis Ian is best known for “At Seventeen” which is an absolute classic. And, beyond that, not afraid of serious subjects. Many people list Breaking Silence as the best of her later albums, and it includes songs about the holocaust, spousal abuse, and incest.
It sounds like most of her later albums were recorded with minimal budget and concern about the market. Wikipedia says about Breaking Silence,
[Ian and Pat Snyder] took on a second mortgage to fund the album, as major record labels were no longer interested in Ian's work. ‘I thought I was only going to get one more chance to record, so I wanted to make it count’, Ian said. It was her first album in 12 years.
Also,. about God and the FBI
At the time of her making God and the FBI, Ian thought this would be her final album because of poor record sales since her return to recording in the middle 1990s, and her realization that she could not survive upon playing benefit concerts for causes like Zero Population Growth. Consequently, Ian abandoned the commercial pretensions of previous releases, doing a large portion of the sessions in-house rather than in a studio, and doing ten songs with a single band.
Despite, or perhaps because of that, it feels happy.
God & The FBI
Mama's making mimeos. Pete's on the stereo
singing 'bout freedom, bugs in the bedroom
Big investigation - danger to the nation
Search and seizure, better buy a lawyer
"We know you're a member
"Saw you under cover
"Are you hiding evidence?"
None of this makes any sense
The opening and title track inspired by Ian getting copies of the FBI files on her parents she says of the song, “I thought I’d turn it into something funny or laughable.” It reminds me of a comment that my grandfather made about the Pumpkin Papers that, in some ways, the ‘50s were like a bad science fiction movie. It captures the anxiety of the era while making it silly.
Memphis
We were standing by the river,
staring into town
All the world was on his shoulders
The tears were raining down
All along the Southern skyline,
city lights began to bloom
He said -- if you only knew her
the way that I do, sir,
you would be crying too
This song didn’t make an impression on me when I first listened to the album, and I’m happy to correct that now. I’ve been listening to it a lot lately and it’s lovely. A collaboration with Willie Nelson, Ian says, “Everyone said Willie would never record it with me, but we persisted and sure enough, one day the invitation came - come on down to Perdenales and record it in his studio! Chet Atkins played lead, we sang, and it was an unbelievably wonderful experience.” It start slow; I find the opening 15 seconds a little boring, but the song proper is one that you can just sink into. A lovely tribute to times-gone-by.
Boots Like Emmy Lou’s
If I had boots like Emmy Lou's
I'd wear my hair like Loretta used to do
I'd sing like Patsy Cline
and Kitty Wells combined
if I had boots like Emmy Lou's
I'd never need a shine
Pure fun, imaging how nice life could be as a star. I love the point at which she drops into a New York accent to rhyme, “I'd teach those boots to talk / They'd lecture in New Yawk” (There’s also a live version which I think is even better.)
Murdering Stravinsky
We're murdering Stravinsky
Shooting at Ravel
Burying Picasso, slaughtering Caetano
at the gates of hell
We're bringing down the Beatles
Dylan and his pals
We're working very hard to be the avante-garde
Murdering Stravinsky
The closing track, it’s slightly experimental. The music is harsher and there are odd background noises. I thought it was very cool when I first heard the album. But what strikes me now is that, for all of the provocative lines (“Beauty is ugly / and ugliness is king”) the whole thing still has a smile on it’s face. It doesn’t sound like they’re distressed.
Thanks for turning the light on the later Janis Ian albums, which I've still to lsiten to properly. Some great songs here.
Thanks for introducing me to Janis Ian! Your insights have piqued my interest in exploring more of her work!