Strange Fruit
Southern trees bear strange fruit
Blood on the leaves
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
The scent of magnolia 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
At Syracuse University this past weekend was Commencement Weekend. On top of the regular convocation and commencement African American students on campus had a ceremony "Itanwa Orinwa" to celebrate our accomplishments and heritage. The keynote speaker Jackie Warren-Moore, a poet and Syracuse activist in her speech discussed how lucky we were in spite of our many obstacles and told a story of how her mother saved a black man from being brutally killed by a bunch of white men on the streets of Syracuse. She also shared with us the song Strange Fruit from Billie Holiday and told how it discussed political issues that most artist weren't able to speak about. But she did it through words. So me being me did some research on the song and this is what I found:
"Strange Fruit" is the title of a song made famous when it was performed in 1939 at the Cafe Society nightclub in New York by the great jazz singer Billie Holiday. It was a surprisingly unusual song for a cabaret because it was an overt song of African American protest, a message that had heretofore been hidden in spirituals and the blues. The words of "Strange Fruit" refer to lynchings, the killing of black people by mobs in the South. Nearly 4,000 people were lynched in the fifty years before 1939. Most of these murders were by hanging, and the song's lyrics dramatically describe bodies hanging from trees like fruit: "Southern trees bear a strange fruit, / Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, / Black body swinging in the Southern breeze, / Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees."
This was a protest song aimed directly at white people, and some walked out of Cafe Society, an integrated Greenwich Village club designed for intellectuals and political liberals. Some people thought "Strange Fruit" was not appropriate entertainment, some were overcome by the searing power of the song's imagery, some were simply fearful of expressing protest. A few African Americans were unhappy because they felt it only portrayed blacks as victims. Columbia, which recorded Billie Holiday's songs, refused to record this one. She found a small company, but many juke boxes and radio stations, including BBC, still would not play it.
"Strange Fruit's" words and music were written by Abel Meeropol, a New York City schoolteacher, under the name Lewis Allen. Perhaps Holiday was able to put the feeling into the lyrics that she did because her own background was one of terrible abuse, poverty, and suffering. Her own father had died in Texas because he could not get proper medical treatment, and she continued to feel that pain. "Strange Fruit" became her last set every night at Cafe Society. The house was silenced, a single spotlight found her face, and with her unmatched phrasing, timing, timbre, and sincerity, the 24-year-old Holiday combined dignity with anger to utter the stark words, "And the sudden smell of burning flesh.... Here is a strange and bitter crop."
Blood on the leaves
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
The scent of magnolia 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
At Syracuse University this past weekend was Commencement Weekend. On top of the regular convocation and commencement African American students on campus had a ceremony "Itanwa Orinwa" to celebrate our accomplishments and heritage. The keynote speaker Jackie Warren-Moore, a poet and Syracuse activist in her speech discussed how lucky we were in spite of our many obstacles and told a story of how her mother saved a black man from being brutally killed by a bunch of white men on the streets of Syracuse. She also shared with us the song Strange Fruit from Billie Holiday and told how it discussed political issues that most artist weren't able to speak about. But she did it through words. So me being me did some research on the song and this is what I found:
"Strange Fruit" is the title of a song made famous when it was performed in 1939 at the Cafe Society nightclub in New York by the great jazz singer Billie Holiday. It was a surprisingly unusual song for a cabaret because it was an overt song of African American protest, a message that had heretofore been hidden in spirituals and the blues. The words of "Strange Fruit" refer to lynchings, the killing of black people by mobs in the South. Nearly 4,000 people were lynched in the fifty years before 1939. Most of these murders were by hanging, and the song's lyrics dramatically describe bodies hanging from trees like fruit: "Southern trees bear a strange fruit, / Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, / Black body swinging in the Southern breeze, / Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees."
This was a protest song aimed directly at white people, and some walked out of Cafe Society, an integrated Greenwich Village club designed for intellectuals and political liberals. Some people thought "Strange Fruit" was not appropriate entertainment, some were overcome by the searing power of the song's imagery, some were simply fearful of expressing protest. A few African Americans were unhappy because they felt it only portrayed blacks as victims. Columbia, which recorded Billie Holiday's songs, refused to record this one. She found a small company, but many juke boxes and radio stations, including BBC, still would not play it.
"Strange Fruit's" words and music were written by Abel Meeropol, a New York City schoolteacher, under the name Lewis Allen. Perhaps Holiday was able to put the feeling into the lyrics that she did because her own background was one of terrible abuse, poverty, and suffering. Her own father had died in Texas because he could not get proper medical treatment, and she continued to feel that pain. "Strange Fruit" became her last set every night at Cafe Society. The house was silenced, a single spotlight found her face, and with her unmatched phrasing, timing, timbre, and sincerity, the 24-year-old Holiday combined dignity with anger to utter the stark words, "And the sudden smell of burning flesh.... Here is a strange and bitter crop."
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