Seriously...

The music writer Laura Barton presents a triptych of meditations on the enduring qualities, appeal and intent of pop music. At the age of seventeen we stand on the cusp of adulthood, on the edge of new autonomy, freedom, beginning. It is the age, too that has preoccupied songwriters from Chuck Berry via the Beatles and Stevie Nicks to Olivia Rodrigo, who this year - at the age of seventeen - had a global hit with a song about getting that symbol of maturity, her driver's licence. Laura talks to Janis Ian, herself on the edge of 70, and Sharon Van Etten, who's just turned 40, about the 'seventeen' songs they've written, as well as the music journalist David Hepworth, founding editor of Just Seventeen magazine, about what makes seventeen the pivotal age for pop music. (Including extracts from Lost in Vegas with George and Ryan and Take 5 with Chit Chat on MAX TV) Broken Social Scene - Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl Stevie Nicks - Edge of Seventeen Sharon Van Etten - Seventeen Joan Jett - I Love Rock n Roll Olivia Rodrigo - Drivers License Jackie DeShannon - When You Walk in the Room The Beatles - I Saw Her Standing There Janis Ian - At Seventeen Chuck Berry - Little Queenie Meat Loaf - Paradise by the Dashboard Light The Cars - Let's Go Abba - Dancing Queen Ladytron - Seventeen The Regents - Seventeen The Flamingos - Only Seventeen Ray Coniff - Seventeen Fontane Sisters - Seventeen The Supremes - He's Seventeen The Crystals - What a Nice Way to Turn Seventeen St Etienne - When I was Seventeen Frank Sinatra - It Was a Very Good Year Elton John - Between Seventeen and Twenty David Gates - Love is Always Seventeen The Magic Numbers - Only Seventeen Emilio - Seventeen Produced by Alan Hall A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4