Ian wrote the lyrics on the basis of a New York Times article and used a samba instrumental, and Brooks Arthur produced the final version.

Various recording artists and musicians, including Anita Kerr, Jann Arden, and Celine Dion, have covered "At Seventeen".

[1][2] She was inspired to write the single after reading a New York Times article about a young woman who thought her life would improve after a debutante ball and her subsequent disappointment when it did not.

[4] During the recording process, which Ian described as "very tense", she worried she had accidentally stolen the melody from a different song and consulted three friends about it.

[6][8] Mix magazine's Gary Eskow cited Ian's style as the opposite of Antônio Carlos Jobim's because she "explore[d] the belly of the bossa, the flip side of Ipanema".

[12] "At Seventeen" is a pop[12] and soft rock ballad about being a social outcast in high school,[13][14] particularly with respect to adolescent cruelty and rejection.

[3] Producer Herb Gart had suggested that "When the Party's Over" be released as the lead single from Ian's seventh studio album Between the Lines rather than "At Seventeen".

[6] Gart asked radio stations to play only the first sixty seconds of "At Seventeen" followed by an advertisement for the song to encourage people to call in and request the rest.

[31][32] Ian was initially hesitant to perform the single live, describing it as deeply personal and fearing public ridicule.

[3] Ian sang "At Seventeen" on Saturday Night Live's first episode on October 11, 1975, and the following year, she performed it on The Old Grey Whistle Test at the Shepherd's Bush BBC Television Theatre.

[40] Ian sang "At Seventeen" for the 2016 Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts' American Songbook series and the 2018 Cambridge Folk Festival.

[46] Brittany Spanos, writing for The Village Voice, attributed the song's success to Ian's intimate delivery of its subject, likening it to Joni Mitchell's fourth studio album Blue (1971).

[48] John Lissner described "At Seventeen" as "mellow [and] improve[d] with each hearing", along with the songs "When the Party's Over", "From Me to You", and "Bright Lights and Promises".

The character Donald Duncan, portrayed by Geoff Dunsworth, is shown listening to the single in a scene Professor Jennifer Drouin interpreted as indicative of his queer identity.

Stephen Holden, writing for The New York Times, criticized the song's placement in the film, and believed it belonged in "a softer and gentler movie" instead.

[75] The single was featured in three episodes of The Simpsons: "A Streetcar Named Marge", "El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer", and "Chief of Hearts".

Club's Nathan Rabin cited the scene as representative of the episode's satire on "loneliness and despair [transformed] into crowd-pleasing entertainment through wildly inappropriate showmanship".

Ian said that Card's work had inspired her own music, specifically the track "This House" from her 1993 studio album Breaking Silence.

Stephen Holden said that her performances of the song Bruce Roberts' "I Don't Break Easily" were "built to strong dramatic climaxes in which a key line abruptly changed the narrative perspective".

[86] Tara MacLean recorded the song for the 1999 movie Teaching Mrs. Tingle,[87] and Paul Clinton believed the film's soundtrack added "energy and pacing to the story".

[88] Chocolat covered a Yoshinori Sunahara-produced "At Seventeen" for her 1999 second studio album Hamster, which Billboard's Steve McClure described as having a "dark, ambient feel".

[93] New Zealand singer Amber Claire released her version of "At Seventeen" as the second single from her 2004 debut album Love and Such.

[95] The same year, Gwyneth Herbert included her rendition on her second studio album Bittersweet and Blue; a reviewer from The Times described the version as "pop angst".

[100] Producer Kenneth Ehrlich requested Celine Dion perform the song as part of a 2008 Grammy Nominations TV special.

She included it on her Las Vegas residency show Céline,[101] and recorded a Babyface-produced cover for her eleventh English-language studio album Loved Me Back to Life (2013).

[103] Some critics praised Dion's performance,[103][104][105] with Slant Magazine's Eric Henderson writing it perfectly represents the singer as a "manic, Hallmark card-brandishing guru of schmaltz".

[108] Entertainment Weekly's Grady Smith praised her rendition for showcasing her breathy vocals,[109] while Evan Sawdey of PopMatters found it to be unoriginal and tone-deaf.

[120][121] The same year, Alessia Cara included a song entitled "Seventeen" on her EP Four Pink Walls, which the Rolling Stone's Brittany Spanos called a "savvy update" of the Ian original.

[122] Saffron Monsoon (portrayed by Julia Sawalha) did a karaoke version of "At Seventeen" in the 2016 film Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie in a bar with drag queens.

[125] In 2018, American singer Sarah Partridge covered "At Seventeen" for her album Bright Lights and Promises: Redefining Janis Ian.