The "Better Times" Project

Janis Ian & Friends

Carlene & Ryan

Listen to or download the song.

Play this on the jukebox and listen to a lot of other versions too.
You can also download all the different musical versions, in the order they went up.

Check Carlene & Ryan’s label, Punk Rock Diner, for more info.

Drums, keyboard, vocal, engineer, videographer – Ryan Gill
Guitars, bass, backing vocals – Carlene Heitman
Recorded @ Our Living Room

From Janis: You’ve seen Ryan Gill‘s name here before, as a cartoonist (look him up!). When I discovered he was also a musician, I invited him to contribute again. He and Carlene have given this song a reading I never expected, with a video that’s perfectly in tune, and shown once again how versatile music can be in the hands of the right people!

Fun factoid from Ryan: The drums are Yamaha Recording Customs from the band TAD (80’s 90’s Seattle), and were used to record the Nirvana song “Sliver”.  Nirvana broke into TAD’s studio and recorded that song when Dan Peters (Mudhoney) was playing drums for them.

Carlene has been performing and recording in the the Pacific Northwest since the 80’s in various bands (DSML, Wicked Angel, Circus of the Stars, Born Naked, Control Freak). Along with Ryan, she currently plays in Sky Penis. They also run a small record label called Punk Rock Diner, and just released a compilation called Escape From Seattle.  

BETTER TIMES WILL COME
(Janis Ian)

Better times, better times will come.
Better times, better times will come.
When this world learns to live as one,
oh, better times will come

When we greet each dawn without fear
knowing loved ones soon will be near
When the winds of war
cannot blow any more
Oh, better times will come

CHORUS

Though we live each day as our last
we know someday soon it will pass
We will dance, we will sing
in that never-ending spring
Oh, better times will come

CHORUS