The Outsiders - Janis and Taylor - Defiant to the End

In English 61, Mr. Lewenstein asked us to compare our sixties subject to something or someone more familiar from today's age.  He told us the deeper we went into our comparison, the better we would understand our topic.  When I first thought of it, I couldn't think of anyone more different than Janis Joplin and Taylor Swift.  Their looks, their styles, their attitudes are opposite extremes.  But the more I read, the closer they became.  They are both ambitious in their love and their music.  They are two of a kind.

As young girls, both Janis and Taylor found themselves socially on the outside looking in, but that’s probably what pushed them both to songwriting.   They didn’t really fit into their high-school crowd.  They weren’t really followers.  They were free-spirits.  They were dreamers. 

Janis grew up in an affluent family in Port Arthur, Texas, but she ran away at age 17 because she felt like such an outcast.    While her high-school classmates were listening to Top 40 coming out of the AM radio, Janis was crazy for black blues legends like Bessie Smith, Big Mama Thorton, and Leadbelly.   In 1963, she landed in the psychedelic, drug-energized San Francisco music scene where she established her own unique sound as white blues queen and rock ‘n’roll mama. Janis  once said, "Aretha Franklin, Billie Holiday....They are so subtle, they can milk you with two notes. They can go no farther than from A to B, and they can make you feel like they told you the whole universe.”  

While Janis sought inspiration from the blues, Taylor’s songs often come straight out of her personal experience.  She writes about her her feelings, her dreams, and her heartbreaks.  Beginning  in middle school and continuing through high-school, Taylor didn’t have many friends or people to talk to.  She felt like an outsider looking in.  But all that misery and rejection pushed her towards songwriting.   She spilled her guts on paper.  Writing songs was like keeping a diary.  According to Taylor, she tries to write songs that people her age could relate to.  When she writes,  Taylor says she writes in real time.   She strives to be personal and honest..  In her songs, she shares the sadness and letdowns of her own relationships because she wants to let her fans know they are not alone: “Nobody ever lets me in/ I can still see you, this ain’t the best view/  On the outside looking in.” (from a song she wrote when she was twelve: “The Outside.”) 

 I read that both Janis and Taylor were often teased and bullied in high school. It’s like whatever makes you different at that age makes you somehow uncool.  At a certain point, they must have thought there was no chance to be part of the crowd.  I can only imagine their insecurities.  

Fortunately for them, music became their own form of therapy.  They may have not had anyone to talk to, but they were only a guitar away from saying something special.   Their music tells us it’s okay to stand apart.