"Society's Child" was a song written in 1965 by Janis Ian

Janis Ian

Janis Ian is an American songwriter, singer, musician, columnist, and science fiction author. Ian first entered the folk music scene while still a teenager in the mid-sixties; most active musically in that decade and the 1970s, she has continued recording into the 21st century...

.
It centered around the then-taboo

Taboo

A taboo is a strong social prohibition relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and or forbidden based on moral judgment, religious beliefs and or scientific consensus. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society...

 subject of interracial

Miscegenation

Miscegenation is the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, and procreation....

 romance. Ian was 13 years old
when she was motivated to write the song and completed it when she was 14.

The lyrics of the song center around the feelings of a young girl who witnesses the humiliation that
her African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 boyfriend receives from the girl's mother and the taunts that she herself endures from classmates and teachers. It closes with her decision to end her relationship with the boyfriend because of her inability to deal with the social pressure.

In 1964, Ian lived in East Orange, New Jersey

East Orange, New Jersey

East Orange is a city in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census the city's population 64,270, making it the state's 20th largest municipality, having dropped 5,554 residents from its population of 69,824 in the 2000 Census, when it was the state's 14th most...

. Her neighborhood was predominantly populated by African-Americans and she was one of very few whites

Caucasian race

The term Caucasian race has been used to denote the general physical type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia , Central Asia and South Asia...

 in her school. "I saw it from both ends. I was seeing it from the end of all the civil rights stuff on the television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 and radio

Radio

Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...

, of white parents being incensed when their daughters would date black men, and I saw it around me when black parents were worried about their sons or daughters dating white girls or boys. I don't think I knew where I was going when I started it, but when I hit the second line, 'face is clean and shining black as night,' it was obvious where the song was going. I don't think I made a conscious decision to have the girl cop out in the end, it just seemed like that would be the logical thing at my age, because how can you buck school and society and your parents, and make yourself an outcast forever?"

Songwriter and producer Shadow Morton

Shadow Morton

George 'Shadow' Morton is an American record producer and songwriter best known for his influential work in the 1960s and the introduction of girl group The Shangri-Las to the pop music world....

 signed Janis to a record contract and made the decision to release "Society's Child" as her first release. Ian's original title for the song was "Baby, I've Been Thinking," but Morton changed it to "Society's Child". It was recorded using six studio musicians.

Leonard Bernstein's

Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...

 producer saw Janis perform "Society's Child" at The Gaslight

The Gaslight Cafe

The Gaslight Cafe was an American coffee house located in the basement of 116 MacDougal Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York...

 and scheduled Ian to perform the song on a television special about new pop music

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

. Largely due to Bernstein's efforts, Verve Records

Verve Records

Verve Records is an American jazz record label now owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded by Norman Granz in 1956, absorbing the catalogues of his earlier labels, Clef Records and Norgran Records , and material which had been licensed to Mercury previously.-Jazz and folk origins:The Verve...

 started promoting it in trade magazines and many radio stations picked it up. Some radio stations, such as WLS

WLS (AM)

WLS is a Chicago clear-channel AM station on 890 kHz. It uses C-QUAM AM stereo and transmits with 50,000 watts from transmitter and towers on the south edge of Tinley Park, Illinois....

, refused to play the song. Several radio stations were slow to add the song to their play list, but this behavior extended the record's airplay life. Recorded in 1965 and released in 1966, "Society's Child" did not enter Billboard

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

s Top 40 until June 17, 1967. The single was no. 1 or top ten in several key cities across America, but in July stalled at #14 on the Hot 100 owing to resistance in certain markets, as was the fate of several other controversial pop hits of the era. Skin colors reversed, Stories

Stories (band)

Stories was a rock and pop music band, based out of New York in the early 1970s. The band consisted of keyboardist Michael Brown, bassist/vocalist Ian Lloyd, guitarist Steve Love, and drummer Bryan Madey, and had a Number 1 hit with a cover of Hot Chocolate's "Brother Louie."-Band history:Lloyd ...

' "Brother Louie" had no trouble topping the Hot 100 more than six years later.

"Society's Child" was inducted into the Grammy Hall Of Fame in 2001.