Album: Between The Lines (1975)

Charted: 3

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• 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
  
  The valentines I never knew
  The Friday night charades of youth
  Were spent on one more beautiful
  At seventeen I learned the truth
  
  And those of us with ravaged faces
  Lacking in the social graces
  Desperately remained at home
  Inventing lovers on the phone
  
  Who called to say, "Come dance with me"
  And murmured vague obscenities
  It isn't all it seems
  At seventeen
  
  A brown eyed girl in hand-me-downs
  Whose name I never could pronounce
  Said, "Pity, please, the ones who serve
  They only get what they deserve"
  
  And the rich-relationed hometown queen
  Marries into what she needs
  With a guarantee of company
  And haven for the elderly
  
  Remember those who win the game
  Lose the love they sought to gain
  In debentures of quality
  And dubious integrity
  
  Their small-town eyes will gape at you
  In dull surprise when payment due
  Exceeds accounts received
  At seventeen
  
  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
  
  It was long ago and far away
  The world was younger than today
  When dreams were all they gave for free
  To ugly duckling girls like me
  
  We all play the game, and when we dare
  To cheat ourselves at solitaire
  Inventing lovers on the phone
  Repenting other lives unknown
  
  They call and say, "Come dance with me"
  And murmur vague obscenities
  At ugly girls like me
  At seventeen Writer/s: Janis Ian
  Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
  Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 36

• Jennifur SunI learned this truth at 14, in Junior High. I too was never dated and never went to the prom. sometimes I wonder if teens really know or understand the emotional heartache they put others thru. And sometimes I wonder if some of them really care. sadly now days you can hide behind a computer and bully others.
  
  Too Karen from Manchester, I understand a lot of what you went through. I learned my facts at 14 in Junior High hugs
• Diane from MarylandI just finished watching Miller's girls and I heard the song at the end and I started paying attention to the lyrics. I graduated in '76 but my junior high and high school years we're horrible. I was born with a lazy I and my grandparents who raised me did not get me a contact lens till I was 16. I only wore one in my right eye because I'm technically blind in my left eye, I only see the Big E on the eye chart. Therefore I was teased constantly and called Clarence the cross-eyed line and eyes and all kinds of nasty names. Therefore I was always conscious of how I looked. My sister used you tell me I was ugly and she was prettier. So I grew up with a lot of inferior complexes. I remember getting my High School pictures being afraid to open them because I was afraid of how horrible I would look. To my surprised they were beautiful. So maybe I was like The Ugly Duckling who didn't realize that she had blossomed into a swan. I still carry that inferior complex because when my husband tells me I'm beautiful I have a hard time believing it. So sad to carry that all your life because of what happened in your childhood!
• James Zandri from Wallingford Ct.I was just reading Lee Mccormick's comments from Mountain Home Ar. and it is a strange thing that I, too, swear I remember this song from the 60's and when I found out it was from 1975, I thought it was strange. I never mentioned it to anyone, but now that I see Lee's comment, I thought I would let him and others know I also got this funny feeling I heard the song in the 60's. I relate to the song also. A lot of it was like me.
• Nora Fuentes Welchel from Oklahoma This song spoke to me as I was growing up, it touched me deeply. I could never finish singing it because the tears would start rolling down my face. I'm glad you made this song and no one else can perform it like you!
• Jennifur SunI too understand those lyrics was out of school when it came out. but was never dated, never went to the prom, didn't really wear hand me down cloths, but never could afford the IN thing. Kids are and were then cruel. still to this day, when a guy would become friends with me, they were teased by their friends. thank you Janice
• Lee Mccormick from Mountain Home, ArI keep reading that "At Seventeen" was first released in 1975, but I am sure I heard it much earlier than that. I remember listening to it in the 1960's, I think contemporaneously with "Society's Child", around 1967. I remember it because it impressed me very much. Can anyone shed any light on this?
• Carole Ray from Cleveland OhioMarketing over caring
• Seattleguy from SeattleI was 19 when this came out and, while I sang along with the words as written, I felt the parts that were common to a boy's experience, my younger experience, being last chosen for basketball, skinny arms, awkward, not popular, overlooked by girls, the forgotten. With this song, I was not forgotten.
• Barry from Sauquoit, Ny'And those of us with ravaged faces'
  On October 11, 1975, Janis Ian performed "At Seventeen" on the debut episode of the NBC-TV Saturday late-night comedy show 'Saturday Night Live"...
  At the time "At Seventeen" was at #28 on Billboard's Top 100 chart, four weeks earlier it had peaked at #3 {for 2 weeks} and it spent 20 weeks on the Top 100...
  It reached #1 {for 2 weeks} on August 3rd, 1975 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary Tracks chart...
  She had two other Top 100 records, "Society's Child" {#14 in 1967} and "Under the Covers" {#71 in 1981}...
  Ms. Ian, born Janis Eddy Fink, celebrated her 66th birthday six months ago on April 7th {2017}.
• Esskayess from Dallas, Tx'Wallflower' boys can certainly identify with this song as well.
• Karen from Manchester, NhThis song had always resonated with me: "The brown-eyed girl in hand-me-downs whose name I never could pronounce" and "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"...that was me in school. There was even a teacher who would refuse to pronounce my name correctly. I finally found a way to contact Janis Ian to thank her for the song, and she actually wrote back!
• Camille from Toronto, OhThis song is poetry set to music. Even now, over 30 years later, the lyrics amaze me. I was 17 when it was popular. It spoke of all those frustrations a teenage girl with no support system has when she sees the pretty, socially adjusted and well-connected girls in her world enjoy their position in life. I'm not gay; the words to this song apply to a myriad of misfit girls. I learned how to create a better life for myself as I grew into adulthood, but sometimes that slight social-outcast part of me still surfaces. The tone of this song, it is so laid back, not accusing, simply stating, that this is how things are.....perfect to get the point across.
• Michael Scott from Punta Gorda, FlI too was 18 when this came out stationed at Ft. Bragg, NC A 1/504 82nd Airborne, it was what kept me going. I always thought of the girl in the song and the beautiful singer/songwriter, if someone as lovely as this had it as bad as me and could still sing so beautifully in life so could I be in life.
• James from Lincoln, Ca. 95648, CaI first heard "At Seventeen" while I was on "hold" for an office appointment. I am 75 and it struck me hard. I knew it was a "girls" song, I felt it left the male side unexposed and unappreciated. It took two days, but I have created a "response" for all those guys who may have felt awkward and different. I can hear this sung by a man who could deliver the same, subtle message that Janice wrote. Any interest out there? I'm wading in uncharted waters here. Jim
• Rick from Belfast, MeThis was the first and only song that I heard while at Parris Island, S.C....from June to Sept 1975......it brought me back down to Earth and I felt like there was hope....of getting thru Marine Corps boot camp. I was only 17 when I signed up for the US Marines....and was 18 when i heard it.
• Paul from Washington Dc, DcBeing a Gay teenager was tough for me, and despite the social progress that's been made since this song was first a hit, it probably always will be rough going for Gay youth. Anyway, Janis' song really touched me, and I remember feeling this sense of vindication and validation when she won her Grammy for it. Musicians with Janis' talent help to reinforce my sometimes-shaky faith in humankind.
• Serra from Santa Fe, NmI was 8 when this song came out and I remember listening to it over and over and over... The song perfectly describes growing up in small town Texas. My family was upper middle class, but I was brutally harassed and bullied; girls fought in gym class over which team would NOT get me; never, ever had a date- until college and had to hide my sexuality and spirituality until I was able to move at least 100 miles away. My Honor Society, jock brother swore he would beat me until I was "normal," but even severe bruising could not make me fit in. I would have done just about anything to fit in and belong, but nothing worked. I'm lucky I survived. It took forever, but eventually, I found people who looked deeper and found me.
• Mike from Matawan, NjGreat song....I like Janis if for no other reason then the parody of this song she did with Howard Stern about Jerry Seinfeld. She seemed mortified doing it at the time, but was laughing the entire time she was doing the duet with Howard.
• Carrie from Roanoke, VaThis song was also featured on an early episode of the Simspsons, in which Lisa enters a local beauty pageant.
• Jimmy from Salford, United KingdomI first heard the song 25/30 years ago and was blown away by it, the words, the voice and the simplicity of it. Not many songs move me like that, Eva Cassidy's over the rainbow, Harry Belafonte's Scarlet Ribbons. Its a real rights of passage song.
• Oldpink from New Castle, InI forgot to add that Janis mentioning that it is ultimately an upbeat song because of the reference to the ugly duckling becoming a swan.
  Take a look at her performing this on the BBC "Old Grey Whistle Test" show clip on YouTube, and you will see an absolutely gorgeous Janis.
  Ugly, she is not!
• Oldpink from New Castle, InThere are songs about trivial matters, other about love, and there are others about drugs, then there are songs such as this, with something universal, profound, and timeless.
  I still have sitting on my DVR's hard drive the first episode of Saturday Night Live with her performance of this fantastic song.
  It also turns out that Janis is a very nice person who has not let her success go to her head, a very rare thing indeed.
  In fact, I wrote her a lengthy thank you e-mail in November, and she wrote a return thanks for the recognition.
  Janis is truly a class act!
• Guy from Woodinville, WaEven as a guy, I always appreciated the hell out of this song when it came out. Then I had a girlfriend in the late 70s who TOTALLY related to this song--said it was about her. Funny, because she was absolutely the cutest girl in the room! She said she was a late bloomer.
  
  I wonder if Janis met the late great George Carlin when she performed this on the first Saturday Night Live, which he hosted. Anyway, thank you Janis Ian, for expressing the angst and anger so many of us feel during those growing years!
• James from Yucaipa, CaI remember this song when it first came out.Absolutely beautiful song.Im listening to it now.t/y janis for the memories.6/13/08
• John from Brisbane, United StatesI have known this song for over thirty years now and it is as it deserves to be a classic,Though it did not get to no one,neither did Mccleans Vincent about Van Gogh.Thank you Janis for your masterpiece.
• Musicmama from New York, NyAnna, since I look for the best in people, even those I haven't met, I'll assume you're being ironic, sardonic or simply silly.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  This song will always be special to me. It became popular during my senior year in high school (OK, you can do the math and figure out my age!)and I understood how she felt: awkward and unattractive, unloved and unlovable by anyone but herself. Perhaps this song was her first step in loving herself.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I can remember thinking, even before the rumors started, that it had something to do with her being a lesbian, or at least not heterosexual. You see, I was in the closet--back then, I had been an altar boy, boy scout and almost anything else with "boy" in it--and I felt that the prom (which I helped to plan and organize but didn't attend)was for people who were what I wasn't and who therefore were having and celebrating relationships I could never have had. And believe me, I tried: I spent decades living as a man, and was even married to a woman.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Anyway, there are other songs I prefer musically, although this one is quite good. But possibly the only songs that have affected me as much as "At Seventeen" are Bob Marley's "Redemption Song" and "Coming In From the Cold" and Pink Floyd's "Hey You" and "Comfortably Numb."
• Mary from Yuma, AzAnyone who thinks this song is hilarious has absolutely no feelings, and was probably one of those jerks in high school that didn't care about other's feelings. Especially people that were different.
• Michael from Boulder, CoHow is this song "hilarious?" It's ironic and maybe sarcastic, but not funny at all to the many, many people who identified with it. This song hit home when I was younger and if anything it's more painful now. The musical gracefullness sort of smooths over the brutal lyrics of "At 17," and the same is true for much of what Ian did when she was at the top of her game on "Between the Lines" and its follow-up, "Aftertones." I was a rocker back then, but I had those two folk/jazz/blues albums and they could really move me. Still can.
• Mary from Yuma, AzI was a very shy teenager, and we didn't have much money. So the part, "a brown eyed girl in hand me downs, whose name I never could pronouce" (I also had a hard to pronounce German name)hit me like a ton of bricks. And I was about 17 or so when I first heard it. I felt it was about me and it was almost scary. I've always loved this song. You usually like songs you can relate to.
• Neil from Melbourne, AustraliaThis is the only song I know to use a metaphor from accountancy. "The small town eyes will gaze at you. In dull surprise when payment due. Exceeds accounts received...". If the poor ugly girl dares to suggest that some consideration might be due to her: But we didn't receive a bill!
• Phil from Brooklyn, NyA song about what its like to be all messed up at this age, but one that probably too many of us can identify with. A nice samba-esque number that kind of recalls "The Girl from Ipanema" to an extent.
• Curtis from Cornwall On Hudson , NyIn the Lindsey Lohan vehicle "Mean Girls" her antiestablishment type friend is named Janis Ian who is several times referred to by her full name rather than just her first name like the other characters. It's obvious then that this song was something of an inspiration. BTW not only lesbians and other women like this song. I'm a guy and I appreciate it!
• George from Richmond, VaI think I heard somewhere this song was written about her coming to terms with her sexuality and being a lesbian? Anyone else hear this?
• Pete from Nowra, Australiayeah right anna ,i can't stop laughing
• Matt from Charleston, ScThis song was marketed to women cause Janis knew her audience. She came out as a lesbian a few years ago, and I think she is now a gay rights activist.
• Anna from Nyc, Nythis song is hilarious ! ...and murmur vague obsenities... its too true though

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