Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit"

[wicket]

75 years later and this song is still as powerful as ever...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Fruit

"Strange Fruit" by Lewis Allan & performed by Billie Holiday

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.

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.

[pnutchuck]

1. I love Billie Holiday

I am an artist and have just started a series of modern goddesses, I've already done Lady Day twice.

[wicket]

2. I love Billie too!

She was truly one in a million.

[goclark]

3. Yes, we are living in strange fruit times

God bless Billie!

[wicket]

7. Amen to that!

The Angel of Harlem.

[irancontra]

4. those are by far some of the most visceral & well written lyrics ever...

love you Billie.

[babylonsister]

5. Nina Simone also does a haunting version. nt

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

6. You ain't kiddin'

[NoSunWithoutShadow]

8. Forgive me if this is a dumb question or I'm missing something

But isn't this a song about lynching? I know times are bleak right now, but we haven't regressed that far back, I don't think.

[Cleita]

10. Yes, but it's timely anyway. Also, there have been

recent incidents of racist murders in the South. Remember the black man near Jasper, Texas who was beaten and killed by being dragged behine a pickup truck until he died.

[H2O Man]

12. You might find this interesting:

"Paradoxically, Strange Fruit conveyed a protest against man's powerlessness, and by implication, a Negro protest against anti-Negro sentiment in America. Strange Fruit described a lynching in the South. The nature symbolism -- drawn from Southern agrarian idiom -- was also characteristic of Negro experience with Southern whites. Miss Holiday's indirect reference to white lynchers in the song provided the blues singer a measure of neutrality before the audience; but the point of reference was clearly understood by her audience. The blues song was real history. It was at once a report of an event and evocative of a tragic mood."

- "The Paradoxes of Malcolm X"; from "Speeches at Harvard," with Archie Epps, page 57; Paragon House, 1991.

[NoSunWithoutShadow]

13. Thanks Cleita and H20 Man

I'd forgotten about James Byrd (I think that was his name).
And Thanks for the quoted analysis, it is very interesting.

[Cleita]

9. Those are powerful lyrics.

Thanks for posting this.

[Spazito]

11. It is timeless and will always be one of the most haunting songs...

ever written, just the mention of Billie Holiday's Strange Fruit impacts every fiber of my being.