“Today, Holiday is revered as one of the most influential musical artists of all time. Time magazine named her 1939 recording of “Strange Fruit” the song of the 20th century. “In this sad, shadowy song about lynching in the South,” Time wrote in 1999, “history’s greatest jazz singer comes to terms with history itself.”
“Abel Meeropol, a New York City teacher and songwriter who used the pen name Lewis Allan, wrote “Strange Fruit” after seeing a photograph of a lynching that shocked and haunted him: “Black body swinging in the Southern breeze / Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.”
Sixty-five years ago, on July 17, 1959, Billie Holiday died at Metropolitan Hospital in New York. The 44-year-old singer arrived after being turned away from a nearby charity hospital on evidence of drug use, then lay for hours on a stretcher in the hallway, unrecognized and unattended. Her estate amounted to 70 cents in the bank and a roll of bills concealed on her person, her share of the payment for a tabloid interview she gave on her deathbed.
Strange Fruit song with lyrics
Lyrics: Abel Meeropol (Lewis Allen) (3)
Music: Billie Holiday and Sonny White (4)
Year: 1937(4)
Genre: Blues
Country: USA
Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black body swingin’, In the southern breeze.
Strange fruit hangin’ from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant South,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of the magnolia sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
This song was originally posted on protestsonglyrics.net
Here is the fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, forthe trees, tree to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.
posted by f.sheikh