My 100 Favorite Charted Pop Songs: At Seventeen

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Well, darn all our rotten luck, both @LouAvul and I are both having foot problems, so our zoo trip has been rescheduled. That’s fine with her, because we picked a day where she can go have the sloth experience. (As a side note, I’ll need bail money for her when she tries to steal the sloth. ) But there’s no escape from these 100 favorite songs of mine. Here’s one that would be in the top ten. At Seventeen - Janis Ian Well, I learned the truth at about nine. I was never a popular kid in school. In fact, today they call what I went through “bullying.” The four-eyes jokes (my first encounter with Dorothy Parker’s work was being taunted by classmates with Parker’s immortal line, “Boys never make passes at girls who wear glasses”) and the gray-teeth jokes (I have gray teeth from tetracycline medication). Yeah, it hurt. Badly. Two songs spoke to me so deeply about the “the pain of Valentines that never came.” They are both on the 100 favorites lists. (You have to wait for the other one, but you may know what it is. ) I have actually sent Janis Ian a thank-you note for this song. She was very kind to respond. She was also very kind to write this song for the untold millions of kids who weren’t in the “popularity cliques” in school, to let them know they weren’t the only one. At Seventeen Written by Janis Ian Recorded by Janis Ian From Between the Lines, 1975 Peak chart position: #3 Today’s country song: “Beggar to a King” The small-town eyes will gape at you in dull surprise: