Strange Fruit

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"Strange Fruit"
Strange-Fruit-Commodore-1939.jpg
Single by Billie Holiday
B-side "Fine and Mellow"
Released1939
RecordedApril 20, 1939 [1]
Genre
Length3:02
Label Commodore
Songwriter(s) Abel Meeropol
Producer(s) Milt Gabler
Billie Holiday singles chronology
"I'm Gonna Lock My Heart"
(1938)
"Strange Fruit"
(1939)
"God Bless the Child"
(1942)
Official audio
"Strange Fruit" on YouTube

"Strange Fruit" is a song written and composed by Abel Meeropol (under his pseudonym Lewis Allan) and recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939. The lyrics were drawn from a poem by Meeropol, published in 1937.

Contents

The song protests the lynching of African Americans with lyrics that compare the victims to the fruit of trees. Such lynchings had reached a peak in the Southern United States at the turn of the 20th century, and most victims were African American. [2] :561 The song was described as "a declaration of war" and "the beginning of the civil rights movement" by Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet Ertegun. [3] [4]

Meeropol set his lyrics to music with his wife Anne Shaffer and the singer Laura Duncan and performed it as a protest song in New York City venues in the late 1930s, including Madison Square Garden. Holiday's version was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1978. [5] It was also included in the "Songs of the Century" list of the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts. [6] In 2002, "Strange Fruit" was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". [7]

Poem and song

Meeropol cited this photograph of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, August 7, 1930, as inspiring his poem. Lynching of two African American men in Marion Indiana on 7 August 1930 detail, "Marion, Ind, Aug. 7, 1930" (NBY 3117) (cropped).jpg
Meeropol cited this photograph of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, August 7, 1930, as inspiring his poem.

"Strange Fruit" originated as a protest poem against lynchings. [9] :25–27 [10] In the poem, Abel Meeropol expressed his horror at lynchings of African Americans, inspired by Lawrence Beitler's photograph of the 1930 lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Marion, Indiana. [11]

Meeropol published the poem under the title "Bitter Fruit" in January 1937 in The New York Teacher, a union magazine of the New York teachers union. [12] [ page needed ] Though Meeropol had asked others (notably Earl Robinson) to set his poems to music, Meeropol set "Strange Fruit" to music himself. First performed by Meeropol's wife Anne Shaffer and their friends in social contexts, [13] his protest song gained a certain success in and around New York. Meeropol, Shaffer, and the Black vocalist Laura Duncan performed it at Madison Square Garden. [14] :36-37

Billie Holiday's performances and recordings

One version of events claims that Barney Josephson, the founder of Café Society in Greenwich Village, New York's first integrated nightclub, heard the song and introduced it to Billie Holiday. Other reports say that Robert Gordon, who was directing Holiday's show at Café Society, heard the song at Madison Square Garden and introduced it to her. [12] Holiday first performed the song at Café Society in 1939. She said that singing it made her fearful of retaliation but, because its imagery reminded her of her father Clarence Halliday, she continued to sing the piece, making it a regular part of her live performances. [14] :40–46 Because of the power of the song, Josephson drew up some rules: Holiday would close with it; the waiters would stop all service in advance; the room would be in darkness except for a spotlight on Holiday's face; and there would be no encore. [12] During the musical introduction to the song, Holiday stood with her eyes closed, as if she were evoking a prayer.

Cover versions

Other notable cover versions of the song include the renditions of Nina Simone, UB 40, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Jeff Buckley. The Financial Times considered that Nina Simone "came close" to the original song "with her similarly bleak 1965 version". Journalist Fiona Sturges noted that "other interpreters have included Diana Ross, Jeff Buckley, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Cocteau Twins and Robert Wyatt", adding that "Kanye West revived interest in the song when he sampled Simone’s recording for his 2013 track “Blood on the Leaves”." [26] The Times remarked that when West sampled it for a song, "about an ex-girlfriend, there was uproar." In contrast journalist Robert Dean noted that other covers "from acts as varied as UB40 and Siouxsie and the Banshees, have been highly respectful." [27] The New York Times wrote that "Josh White and Nina Simone were among the few artists to attempt it in the 1950s and 1960s. But [...] many other musicians—from Sting to Dee Dee Bridgewater to Tori Amos to Cassandra Wilson to UB40 to Siouxsie and the Banshees—have recorded "Strange Fruit," each cut an act of courage given Holiday's continuing hold over the song". [28]

Nina Simone initially recorded the song for her album Pastel Blues , [29] a recording described by journalist David Margolick in The New York Times as featuring a "plain and unsentimental voice". [28] The Los Angeles Times praised Siouxsie and the Banshees' version from the 1987 album Through the Looking Glass for "a solemn string section behind the vocals" and "a bridge of New Orleans funeral-march jazz" which highlighted the singer's "evocative interpretation". [30] The group's rendition was selected by Mojo magazine to be included on the compilation Music Is Love: 15 Tracks That Changed the World. [31] Jeff Buckley covered "Strange Fruit" after discovering it through Siouxsie and the Banshees' rendition. [32] [33] Journalist Lara Pellegrinelli wrote that Buckley seemed to "meditate on the meaning of humanity the way Walt Whitman did, considering all of its glorious and horrifying possibilities". [34]

Awards and honors

In 1999 Time magazine named "Strange Fruit" as "Best Song of the Century" in its December 31, 1999, issue. [35] In 2002 the Library of Congress honored the song as one of 50 recordings chosen that year to add to the National Recording Registry. [36] In 2005 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution listed the song as Number One on "100 Songs of the South". [37] in 2010 the New Statesman listed it as one of the "Top 20 Political Songs". [38] In 2021: Rolling Stone listed it as the 21st best song on their "Top 500 Best Songs of All Time". [39] In 2025 Rolling Stone placed it at number 3 on its list of "The 100 Best Protest Songs of All Time." [40]

Bibliography

References

  1. "Billie Holiday recording sessions". Billieholidaysongs.com. Archived from the original on May 28, 2010. Retrieved April 20, 2011.
  2. Myrdal, Gunnar (1944). An American Dilemma. Harper & Brothers.
  3. Margolick, David (2000). "Chapter One". Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday, Café Society, and an Early Cry for Civil Rights. Running Press. ISBN   0-7624-0677-1 via The New York Times. Ahmet Ertegun, the legendary record producer, called 'Strange Fruit,' which Holiday first sang sixteen years before Rosa Parks refused to yield her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, 'a declaration of war ... the beginning of the civil rights movement.'
  4. Sonnenberg, Rhonda (September 29, 2023). "Artist collaborations with social justice organizations propel change". Southern Poverty Law Center . Archived from the original on June 16, 2024. Retrieved October 28, 2024.
  5. Bessette Knight, Peg. "No Encore | The 100th Anniversary of Billie Holiday's Birth and the Legacy of "Strange Fruit"". ProQuest (Blog). Retrieved June 16, 2015.
  6. "Songs of the Century". CNN . March 7, 2001. Archived from the original on September 13, 2024. Retrieved October 28, 2024.
  7. Allen, Erin (April 16, 2015). "The Power of a Poem". Library of Congress (Blog). Retrieved June 18, 2021.
  8. Richman, Joe; Diaz-Cortes, Anayansi; George, Deborah; Shapiro, Ben; Freemark, Samara; Baer, Annie (August 6, 2010). "Strange Fruit: Anniversary Of A Lynching". All Things Considered . NPR . Retrieved August 15, 2013.
  9. Margolick, David (2000). Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday, Café Society, and an Early Cry for Civil Rights . Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Running Press. ISBN   978-0762406777.
  10. Blair, Elizabeth (September 5, 2012). "The Strange Story of the Man Behind 'Strange Fruit'". Morning Edition . NPR.
  11. 1 2 Moore, Edwin (September 18, 2010). "Strange Fruit is still a song for today". The Guardian . Retrieved September 23, 2010.
  12. 1 2 3 4 Lynskey, Dorian (2011). 33 revolutions per minute: a history of protest songs (1. ed.). London: Faber and Faber. ISBN   978-0-571-24134-7.
  13. Carvalho, John M. (2013). "'Strange Fruit': Music between Violence and Death". The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism . 71 (1). Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell: 111–119 at 111–112. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-6245.2012.01547.x . ISSN   0021-8529. JSTOR   23597541.
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 Margolick, David (2001). Strange fruit: the biography of a song (1st ed.). New York: Ecco Press. ISBN   978-0-06-095956-2.
  15. Billy Crystal (2004). 700 Sundays . HBO. OCLC   112. 700 Sundays at IMDb.
  16. "George Kleinsinger". WNYC . New York. Retrieved August 22, 2023.
  17. Amoako, Aida (April 17, 2019). "Strange Fruit: The most shocking song of all time?". BBC . Archived from the original on October 7, 2024. Retrieved October 28, 2024.
  18. Billy Crystal, 700 Sundays, pp. 46–47.
  19. "Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" (1939)". Smithsonian Music. December 4, 2018. Retrieved October 29, 2024.
  20. Perry, Samuel (2012). ""Strange Fruit," Ekphrasis, and the Lynching Scene" . Rhetoric Society Quarterly . 43 (5): 449–474. doi:10.1080/02773945.2013.839822. S2CID   144222928 . Retrieved October 28, 2024 via Taylor & Francis.
  21. Sottosanti, Karen (October 8, 2024). "Strange Fruit | Lynching, Billie Holiday, Abel Meeropol, & Facts | Britannica". Encyclopedia Britannica .
  22. Lynskey, Dorian (February 15, 2011). "Strange Fruit: the first great protest song". The Guardian .
  23. Katz, Joel (January 17, 2003). "Strange Fruit". ITVS . Retrieved March 30, 2020.
  24. Carrillo, Karen Juanita (May 10, 2023). "How Billie Holiday's 'Strange Fruit' Confronted an Ugly Era of Lynchings". History Channel.
  25. "The history behind lynching protest song, "Strange Fruit"". CBS News . April 24, 2021 via Facebook.
  26. Sturges, Fiona (November 14, 2017). "Billie Holiday's Strange Fruit — 'the first unmuted cry against racism'". The Financial Times. Archived from the original on August 11, 2025. Retrieved August 10, 2025.
  27. Dean, Jonathan (February 28, 2021). "The United States Vs. Billie Holiday: how the FBI tried to stop the protest anthem Strange Fruit". The Times. Archived from the original on August 11, 2025. Retrieved August 10, 2025.
  28. 1 2 Margolick, David. "Strange Fruit – Billie Holiday, Café Society, and an Early Cry for Civil Rights". The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 27, 2013. Retrieved August 10, 2025.
  29. Amoako, Aida (April 17, 2019). "Strange Fruit: The most shocking song of all time". BBC . Retrieved April 20, 2020.
  30. Atkinson, Terry (March 15, 1987). "Siouxsie Looks Back". The Los Angeles Times . Archived from the original on July 11, 2019. Retrieved June 15, 2018.
  31. "Music Is Love! (15 Tracks That Changed The World) CD". Mojo. June 2007.
  32. Grosdemouge, Jean-Marc (June 2005). "Jeff Buckley l'Archange Dévoilé --[Stan Cuesta- interview]". Epiphanies-mag.com. Retrieved November 5, 2024.
  33. Cuesta, Stan (2009). Jeff Buckley. Castor Music. ISBN   978-2859208073.
  34. Pellegrinelli, Lara (June 22, 2009). "Evolution Of A Song: 'Strange Fruit'". NPR . Retrieved February 23, 2015.
  35. Sanburn, Josh (October 21, 2011). "Is 'Strange Fruit' one of the All-TIME 100 Best Songs?". Time.com . Retrieved October 29, 2024.
  36. "National Recording Registry 2002". loc.gov. Retrieved January 29, 2018.
  37. "100 Songs of the South | accessAtlanta.com". Alt.coxnewsweb.com. Archived from the original on September 15, 2005. Retrieved April 20, 2011.
  38. Smith, Ian K (March 25, 2010). "Top 20 Political Songs: Strange Fruit". New Statesman . Retrieved March 25, 2010.
  39. "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". Rolling Stone. September 15, 2021. Retrieved July 19, 2022.
  40. "The 100 Best Protest Songs of All Time". Rolling Stone. January 27, 2025. Retrieved January 28, 2025.