“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
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
Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather
For the wind to suck
For the sun to rot
For the tree to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop”
Shocking. So are the lyrics of the song by famous jazz singer Billie Holiday, who will be played by the wonderful singer Andra Day in the biopic premiering this 2021 called The United States vs Billie Holiday.
The fun fact? This poem was written by a white man called Abel Meeropol, a Jewish professor who was a member of the Communist Party. He originally titled it Bitter Fruit, but he then changed it to strange. His source of inspiration was a painful photograph of two black men's bodies hanging from a tree. The image depicted the lynching that had taken place in August 1930, Indiana, the United States.
At first, the melody written by Meeropol for the poem was sung by his wife, but one day they gave the song to a black singer named Laura Duncan, who performed it in 1938 at Madison Square Garden, and Robert Gordon, a worker at the Café Society where Billie Holiday used to perform, was there. Gordon told the owner of the place - Barney Josephson - about the song and that led Holiday to enter a studio to record it in April 1939.
Strange Fruit was not a sales success, nor was it the first protest song to be heard, but it was the first one that had a big impact on the show business world. Every time it was sung, it had an enormous emotional impact on the audience and on the singer too - who didn’t feel well after her show once. There was such a dead silence that you could hear the flies flying. Sometimes no one even applauded when she finished. Let's remember that being black in the United States wasn’t easy back then and this song told it perfectly.
With the goosebumps caused by this song, we invite you to stay tuned for more news regarding the Latin American premiere of this film by Lee Daniels.
