Saturday 7th November

Ah well, how did I discover Janis Ian?  By a roundabout and rather sad route I am afraid.  It was the early Eighties and I was working for a small group of Restaurants and cake shops.  One of my jobs was to take orders for the cake factory each evening from the Restaurants and shops.  And so I got talking to Alison, one of the manageresses.  And then I met her, and wow – she was gorgeous. We started going out and before we knew it were on holiday together on Crete.  Well, she did a Shirley Valentine on me.  Yes, she left me for a Greek Restaurant owner and stayed behind on the island.  I returned broken-hearted but with the key to her flat.  In my stupidity I had promised to collect her few possessions and pay her rent.  So, along with a few clothes I had a handful of cassettes.  And one was of Janis Ian – Between The Lines.  It is, it must be said, the saddest album I have ever heard.  It makes Nick Drake sound positively cheerful.  As I forlornly waited for word from Alison I would play this cassette over and over again.  The songs are of loneliness, abandoned love and unrequited love and are sung in almost a whisper; one song drifts into another and the sadness just builds. ‘At Seventeen’ absolutely nails that teenage insecurity of never being chosen to dance.  ‘Tea and Sympathy’ looks back on another lost love, and so on.   A wonderful voice and a great album.

Later I bought a few of her other records but she never quite achieved that mood again.  They were mostly quite cheerful, and are okay – but…..  But for me, nothing beats this saddest of records.  And strangely I find it quite uplifting to be cocooned, harboured in this sadness, enveloped in it – it really makes me feel good.