Strange Fruit is essential listening.
Strange Fruit – Billie Holiday – a song that exposes the racism of the past.
When Billie Holiday recorded and sang this song it was a dangerous thing to do. This was back in 1939.
The song has a haunting melody but deals with the terrible lynchings that were a regular feature in the Southern States of America. Nearly 2000 people met their end this way. Three quarters of them were black. There was no trial and they were sometimes for the smallest crimes or even hearsay.
The strange fruit were the bodies of the poor victims left dangling as a warning.
These were the racist days of the Ku Klux Klan. The grinning faces of the arrogant men, so eager to be photographed next to the crime they had committed is testimony to the awfulness of those times.
We should all play this song and reflect on the terrible nature of those crimes in the past so that they may never be repeated.
Racism in any form – white on black, black on white, brown on yellow – is simply wrong.
“Strange Fruit”
Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees
Pastoral scene of the gallant South
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolias sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh
Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the tree to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop
Nina Simone not on did her version but also spoke about it.
Billie Holiday – Strange Fruit – a hauntingly poetic Jazz Protest highlighting the lynching of black people in the South. Civil Rights Protest.
This song was written for Billie and she made it her signature tune.
It was a haunting Jazz song, languid and soft, reflecting those hot magnolia scented nights in the Deep South.
Unfortunately it tells of the frequent and arbitrary rough justice handed out to the black community on the slightest pretext. It was the law of the mob, unjust and vicious, without the slightest trace of compassion. They hung people in the most horrifying way. The strange fruit were the corpses of black men dangling from the trees.
Sometimes this was even worse. What happened to Emmett Till was even worse. He was beaten and tortured by a gang of white thugs and killed. His screams resounded all around but no one came to his rescues.
Thank heavens for the Civil Rights Movement. Thank heavens for all the white activists who put their lives at risk supporting the black communities.
This was an important song.
Strange Fruit
Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.