Strange Fruit
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For other uses, see Strange Fruit (disambiguation).
"Strange Fruit" is a song most famously performed by Billie Holiday that condemns American racism, particularly the practice of lynching and burning African Americans that was prevalent in the South at the time when it was written.
Contents |
[edit] Author
"Strange Fruit" began as a poem about the lynching of a black man written by a radical Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx Abel Meeropol, who used the pen name Lewis Allan (the names of his two children, who died in infancy). "Strange Fruit" was written as a poem expressing his horror at the lynchings,and was first published in 1937 in The New York Teacher, a union magazine. Though Meeropol/Allan often asked others (notably Earl Robinson) to set his poems to music he set Strange Fruit to music himself and the song gained a certain success as a protest song in and around New York. Before Holiday was introduced to the song, it had been performed by Meeropol, by his wife, and by a black vocalist called Laura Duncan, who performed it at Madison Square Garden.
Meeropol said later that he had been inspired by seeing Lawrence Beitler's photograph of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith. "Strange Fruit" was eventually heard by Barney Josefson the founder of Cafe Society, New York's first integrated nightclub, who introduced it to Billie Holiday. Holiday performed the song at Cafe Society in 1939, a move that by her own admission left her fearful of retaliation. Holiday later said that the imagery in "Strange Fruit" reminded her of her father's death, and that this played a role in her persistence to perform it. The song became a regular part of Holiday's live performances.
Holiday approached her recording label, Columbia, about recording the song, but her producer John Hammond - the man credited with originally discovering her - did not support her choice, and Columbia refused to record the song. Holliday arranged to record it with Commodore, Milt Gabler's alternative jazz label in 1939. She would record two major sessions at Commodore, one in 1939 and one in 1944. "Strange Fruit" was highly regarded and in time became Holiday's biggest selling record. Though it became a staple of her live performances at the time, Holiday's accompanist, Bobby Tucker, later commented that Holiday would break down after every performance of it.
In her autobiography Lady Sings the Blues, Billie Holiday suggests that she, together with Lewis Allen, her accompanist Sonny White and arranger Danny Mendelsohn put the poem to music, though the claim is dismissed by David Margolick and Hilton Als in 'Strange Fruit: The Biography of a Song as "an account that may set a record for most misinformation per column inch". When challenged, Holiday - whose autobiography had been ghost-written by William Dufty - claimed "I ain't never read that book"
[edit] Meaning
The "strange fruit" referred to in the song are the bodies of African American men hanged during a lynching. They contrast the pastoral scenes of the South with the ugliness of racist violence. The lyrics were so chilling that Holiday later said "The first time I sang it, I thought it was a mistake. There wasn't even a patter of applause when I finished. Then a lone person began to clap nervously. Then suddenly everyone was clapping."
[edit] Impact
The club owner immediately recognized the impact of the song on his audience and insisted that Holiday close all her shows with it. Just as the song was about to begin, waiters would stop serving, the lights in club would be turned off, and a single pin spotlight would illuminate Holiday on stage. During the musical introduction, Holiday would stand with her eyes closed, as if she were evoking a prayer.
The song was ultimately to become the anthem of the anti-lynching movement. The dark imagery of the lyrics struck a chord, and can be said to have planted one of the first seeds of what would later become the civil rights movement. "Strange Fruit" was certainly ahead of its time, since the civil rights movement began 15 years after its release.
The song became an instant success and came to be the piece most identified with Holiday, though it has been performed by countless others including Josh White, Sting, Robert Wyatt, UB40, Tori Amos, Pete Seeger, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Cassandra Wilson, Nina Simone (on Pastel Blues), Jeff Buckley, Cocteau Twins, Sounds of Blackness, This Bike is a Pipe Bomb, John Martyn and The Twilight Singers and remixed by Tricky. In October 1939, Samuel Grafton of The New York Post described Strange Fruit: "If the anger of the exploited ever mounts high enough in the South, it now has its Marseillaise."
In 2002, it was one of 50 recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry.
It is number one on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's list of 100 Songs of the South. [1]
[edit] Inspiration
The 1944 novel Strange Fruit by author Lillian Smith, is said to have been inspired by Billie Holiday's version of this song.
Inspired the short film, Strange Fruit, written and directed by Christopher Browne. [2]
Seattle literary magazine the strange fruit takes its title from the song.
Oscar Wilde's 1898 poem "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" mentions a gallows tree as having a hanged man for its fruit:
For oak and elm have pleasant leaves
That in the spring-time shoot:
But grim to see is the gallows-tree,
With its adder-bitten root,
And, green or dry, a man must die
Before it bears its fruit!
The hip-hop group Strange Fruit Project takes its name from the song.
[edit] See also
[edit] Lyrics
[edit] References
[edit] Literature
- Clarke, Donald: Billie Holiday. Wishing on the Moon. München, Piper 1995. ISBN 3-492-03756-9
- Davis, Angela: Blues Legacies and Black Feminism. Diverse Ausgaben, z. B. Vintage Books 1999 ISBN 0-679-77126-3
- Margolick, David and Hilton Als: Strange Fruit. Billie Holiday, Café Society and an Early Cry for Civil Rights. Running Press, 2000. ISBN 0-7624-0677-1
- Margolick, David and Hilton Als: Strange Fruit. The Biography of a Song., Ecco 2001. ISBN 0-06-095956-8
- Holiday, Billie (with William Dufty): Lady Sings the Blues, Autobiography.. Edition Nautilus, 1992. ISBN 3-89401-110-6
