Comeback or swansong? It’s both...

Janis Ian The Light At The End Of The Line Out Friday ★★★★☆

It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Janis Ian, the singer-songwriter best known for At Seventeen. But here she is at 70, releasing her first studio album for 15 years and saying it may well be her last. It’s both a comeback and a swansong.

She shows no sign of running out of steam. Next month she begins a US tour that will run until November.

Her summer break will be a busman’s holiday as she holds songwriting masterclasses in North Carolina. I can think of a few superstars who would do well to enrol.

Back on stage in the autumn, Ian (above right, in 1974) will be filmed for a documentary that should be fascinating. The world is still catching up with the themes of her songs. Her first hit, Society’s Child – written in 1965 when she was 14 – was banned by some radio stations because it dealt with inter-racial romance.

The 12 tracks on The Light At

The End Of The Line glow with craftsmanship. Most of them are folk songs, some so old-school that you wonder if they’re traditional, but it turns out that Ian wrote every line. And she knows how to make them tell, setting the simplest of words to melodies that hang in the air like the scent of woodsmoke.

She can also spring a surprise. One track, Resist, is a rock anthem, a call to arms about the way women are disparaged. ‘Too short, too fat, too skinny,’ Ian sings with icy dismay,

‘too tall, too plain, too pretty.’

Soon she’s so incensed that she breaks into a rap. It turns out that rapping is not her forte, but she certainly knows how to rock.

Resist feels like a festival singalong waiting to happen, and it leaves you hoping that her tour comes over here.