“I Didn’t Want to Die”: The Horrifying Reason Janis Ian Ran off Stage While Performing “Society’s Child”

Janis Ian was, quite literally, a child when she wrote one of her most iconic and divisive songs, “Society’s Child.” The folk star finished the song when she was only 14 years old. She recorded the controversial track, which centers around an interracial relationship, only one year after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the landmark Civil Rights Act. With the civil rights movement fresh in everyone’s minds, the song was practically guaranteed to rile people up. As Ian learned the hard way, that anger had to go somewhere.

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During one fateful night at the Valley Music Theater in Encino, California, the audience directed that anger straight toward the young folk singer, who began to fear for her life.

Janis Ian Was Heckled Off Stage During “Society’s Child”

Releasing your first single is an act of bravery under any circumstances. But when a 14-year-old Janis Ian released what would be her first hit single, “Society’s Child (Baby I’ve Been Thinking),” she was taking on a burden few teenagers would be willing to bear at the time. Interracial relationships were strictly taboo, yet here Ian was, a teenager, choosing to use this exact topic for the opening track of her 1967 eponymous debut. It was a risk, and as Ian learned in real-time, those risks had consequences.

In the 2025 documentary Janis Ian: Breaking Silence (via People), the folk singer recalled starting “Society’s Child” during one of her first performances at a concert hall. “These people started yelling, and I thought they were yelling something nice, ‘cause on stage, you can’t really hear what people are yelling very clearly. But I realized they were all yelling ‘n***** lover’ at me. I didn’t know if it was 10 or 20 people or if it was the majority of the audience. It became this horrible, almost prayer-like chant. I knew that I was going to start to cry, and I didn’t want them to see me cry.”

So, Ian set her guitar down and fled off stage to the bathroom. She locked herself in the bathroom for several minutes, crying and confused as to what she should do in this situation. (Remember, Ian was still a child.) Eventually, the event promoter found Ian in the bathroom and reminded her of her purpose as a folk singer.

How The Terrifying Event Ultimately Helped The Songwriter

At a time when so much civil rights tension involved violence, it’s unsurprising that a teenage Janis Ian would run away from a situation that seemed ripe to turn sour at a moment’s notice. “People were getting shot, knifed, disappearing,” Ian said. “Freedom riders were getting killed. It was civil war, and I didn’t want to die. I really didn’t want to die.” Ian argued with the event promoter, who met her in the bathroom and scolded her for leaving the stage. “He finally said something like, ‘I can’t believe the girl who wrote that song is a coward,’” Ian said. Suddenly, her purpose as a songwriter clicked.

Standing in the bathroom of the Valley Music Theater, Ian was acutely aware of the power her music held. “It was a life-changing moment for me. I realized for the first time that the song didn’t just have the power to make people angry. But it had the power to make people stand up and stand up for what they believe. And that was a huge deal that music could do that. I think that was a large part of what set me on my course.”

Ian would continue to write songs that forced listeners to look at things from different perspectives, whether in tracks like “Society’s Child” or her melancholic “At Seventeen,” which she released eight years after her divisive breakthrough hit. Speaking out against injustice, inequality, and the complexity of the human experience has been a mainstay of her decades-long career, which is all a true folk musician can ever hope for.

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