In her soft-spoken way, Society's Child, Janis Ian, deserves mention for all her credible tunes on Between the Lines. Alternating between eerie nostalgia and low-key hysteria, her violin pathos is straight out of a Max Ophuls melodrama, and that's not half bad. Janis plays the ugly duckling, the hardheaded waif with the heart of gold. She plays with her pain, is a perfect candidate for Janov's primal scream therapy, but instead sublimates the hurt into mellow, melodic sighs. Between the Lines is a studiously earnest attempt at self-discovery and Ian asks only that you meet her somewhere in the middle of your life, and hers. (p. 69)

Susin Shapiro, "Rock around the Crotch," in Crawdaddy (copyright © 1975 by Crawdaddy Publishing Co., Inc.; all rights reserved; reprinted by permission), May, 1975, pp. 68-9.∗