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.
A song written and composed by Abel Meeropol and most famously performed by Billie Holiday.
Meeropol was a New York City teacher and poet who'd written the poem after seeing a photograph by Lawrence Beitler of the lynchings of two black men, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, in Marion, Indiana. He published the poem in a union magazine called "The New York Teacher" in 1937 under the pseudonym Lewis Allan. After setting the poem to music, Meeropol, his wife, and Laura Duncan, a black singer, performed it at Madison Square Garden.
Billie Holiday learned of the song from Barney Josephson, the owner of New York's first integrated nightclub, the Cafe Society; she performed it there for the first time in 1939. It became a popular part of her live performances, usually saved for her last song of the night, and Holiday asked her label, Columbia, about recording the song. Worried about a backlash in the South, Columbia passed on it, but gave her a single-session release from her contract so she could record it with Commodore, a jazz label.
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.
"Strange Fruit" was Holiday's biggest selling record, and it soon became known as her signature song. It was quickly adopted by the anti-lynching movement, and its popularity helped win many listeners over. In time, it became one of the anthems of the civil rights movement in the '50s and '60s.
It meant a lot to Holiday, too. She said it reminded her of her father (he wasn't lynched, but died after being turned away by white hospitals), which was one reason she stuck with it for so many years. And Bobby Tucker, her accompanist, said that, even after years of performing the song, she always broke down crying after singing it.
The song is generally classified as blues or jazz, but it seems to transcend both, especially as performed by Holiday. It seems like a fusion of jazz, the dissonant classical music of the early 20th century, and pure horror. Holiday had an unbelievably beautiful and melodic voice, but in this song, her voice embodies revulsion and ugliness. I'm not saying she sings the song poorly or out-of-tune, because the notes are perfect, and the musicianship is perfect -- but Holiday lets the horrors described in the lyrics come right out in the open. It's a two-and-a-half-minute epic of loathing and dread and fear. It's no wonder it became an anthem against lynching, and with its perfect musical skill and artistry, it's no wonder that it became one of Holiday's best-known songs.
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.
Watch the video.
Research:
Spartacus Educational
Wikipedia
Independent Lens