{"id":8887,"date":"2024-11-03T17:56:59","date_gmt":"2024-11-03T23:56:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/?p=8887"},"modified":"2024-11-03T17:56:59","modified_gmt":"2024-11-03T23:56:59","slug":"strange-fruit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/2024\/11\/03\/strange-fruit\/","title":{"rendered":"“Strange Fruit”"},"content":{"rendered":"

The song \u201cStrange Fruit\u201d was first written and performed in 1930. It was most famously sung by jazz singer Billie Holiday, but was written by Jewish American Abel Meeropol(under pseudonym Lewis Allan).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cStrange Fruit\u201d Lyrics:\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Verse 1: Southern trees bear a strange fruit<\/span><\/p>\n

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root<\/span><\/p>\n

Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze<\/span><\/p>\n

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

V2: Pastoral scene of the gallant south<\/span><\/p>\n

The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth<\/span><\/p>\n

Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh<\/span><\/p>\n

Then the sudden smell of burning flesh<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

V3: Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck<\/span><\/p>\n

For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck<\/span><\/p>\n

For the sun to rot, for the tree to drop<\/span><\/p>\n

Here is a strange and bitter crop<\/span><\/p>\n

Recording of Billie Holiday Singing \u201cStrange Fruit\u201d: <\/span>https:\/\/search.alexanderstreet.com\/view\/work\/bibliographic_entity%7Crecorded_cd%7C679895<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span> 1<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cStrange Fruit\u201d is well known because of its accurately grotesque description of the aftermath of a lynching. Meeropol’s particular comparison to fruit is engaging because fruit usually symbolizes new life, but here he uses it to describe death. The \u201cblood at the root\u201d feeds the tree in the same way that hate feeds a horrifying American tradition. The next two verses become a more literal description compared to the metaphor of the first verse. The song puts even more emphasis on the lyrics by consisting of just voice with a soft piano accompaniment. Many of Holiday\u2019s other songs include saxophones, brass, piano, and sometimes a rhythm section, making the instrumentation of \u201cStrange Fruit\u201d stand out. The instrumentation as well as Holiday\u2019s musical decisions to get louder and more forceful as the song goes on displays a raw emotion to drive home the jarring message. The swing feel creates a lack of specific down beat. This makes the rhythm more conversational as though she is recounting a personal experience making the story all the more horrendous and inhuman.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Columbia Records and radio stations did not want to promote or play \u201cStrange Fruit\u201d because of its controversy and dark theme. The song was especially controversial because it was released at the same time as the Anti-Lynching movement that called for making lynching a federal offence. The members of the movement sent the lyrics of \u201cStrange Fruit\u201d to every congress member at the time and \u201cStrange Fruit\u201d became the unofficial song of the movement. Even Holiday was reluctant to perform it in fear of backlash and maintaining her career. The song was first performed by Holiday at \u201cCafe Society\u201d which was one of the first integrated clubs in New York City. The club was also known for combining European cabaret traditions and Afro-American jazz clubs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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https:\/\/search.alexanderstreet.com\/view\/work\/bibliographic_entity%7Crecorded_cd%7C679895<\/p><\/div>\n

In 1940(ten years after the song’s release) Mooropol was questioned by the New York States \u201cRapp-Coudert Committee\u201d who were investigating communism in schools. In 1943, Mooropol wrote \u201cHouse I Live In\u201d which served as a patriotic song discussing racial harmony although this may not have been Mooropol\u2019s intention. \u201cHouse I Live In\u201d was in a short film starring Frank Sinatra and the producers took out a line that said: \u201cthe house I live in, my neighbors white and black\u201d. Mooropol was furious. In both songs by Able Mooropol, the media filtered what they deemed successful and what they thought a majority white audience would want to hear. Another example of this would be in 1950 when Josh White was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee for his recording of \u201cStrange Fruit\u201d where he read the lyrics of the song as a part of his testimony. Unlike Holiday\u2019s, White\u2019s career never recovered.\u00a0<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Billie Holiday and \u201cStrange Fruit\u201d became so influential that Hulu produced a film called \u201cThe United States vs. Billie Holiday\u201d in 2021. The movie describes Holiday\u2019s life and career as well as the FBI\u2019s involvement in Holiday performing \u201cStrange Fruit\u201d. It also implies that the FBI had influence on the overdose that led to Billie Holiday\u2019s death. Despite Holiday\u2019s, Meeropol\u2019s, White\u2019s and the Anti-lynching movement\u2019s efforts, there still hasn\u2019t been any law passed to outlaw lynching as a hate crime.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

1<\/a>Strange Fruit. Directed by Joel Katz. California Newsreel, 2002. https:\/\/video.alexanderstreet.com\/watch\/strange-fruit.<\/p>\n

\n

2<\/a>Ultimate Billie Holiday1997.Verve Records. https:\/\/search.alexanderstreet.com\/view\/work\/bibliographic_entity|recorded_cd|679895.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The song \u201cStrange Fruit\u201d was first written and performed in 1930. It was most famously sung by jazz singer Billie Holiday, but was written by Jewish American Abel Meeropol(under pseudonym Lewis Allan). \u201cStrange Fruit\u201d Lyrics:\u00a0 Verse 1: Southern trees bear … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5299,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1563],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-24-mus-345b"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jEhR-2jl","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5299"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8887"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8888,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8887\/revisions\/8888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}