SOUNDTRACK: BILLIE HOLIDAY-“Strange Fruit” (1939/ (live1959)).
This haunting song is sung with minimal piano accompaniment. In between verses, the original version has some stark trumpet solos, although they are not present in this live version.
Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swingin’ in the Southern breeze
Strange fruit hangin’ from the poplar treesPastoral scene of the gallant South
The bulgin’ eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolias sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burnin’ fleshHere 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
She sings the words slowly (the song is 3 minutes long despite the relatively few words), letting the image linger in your mind as she stretched out “burning flesh” and “for the crows to pluck.” The way she agonizingly sings “drop” and “crop” really emphasizes the last lines.
The studio version has a haunting guitar line–the only guitar in the song–as a little coda. It’s a remarkable addition and really affecting.
I can’t imagine the courage it took to sing these words in 1959 let alone 1939.
This song has a fascinating origin.
Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith were two Black men who were hanged in a spectacle lynching in 1930. A photograph was taken by studio photographer Lawrence Beitler. He sold thousands of copies of the print [which is amazingly disturbing and I can’t imagine who would have bought them]. In 1937 Abel Meeropol, a Jewish school teacher from New York City saw a copy of Beitler’s 1930 photograph which “haunted [him] for days” and inspired his poem “Bitter Fruit” which was published in The New York Teacher in 1937 (under the pseudonym Lewis Allan). Meeropol then set his poem to music, renaming it “Strange Fruit” which Billie Holiday recorded in 1939.
[READ: March 8, 2021] Kindred [the fight]
This week took us to the end of the book.
Dana arrived home with Kevin this time. He’s initially happy to be home, but is soon very restless. He was in the past for five years. They have only been in their new house together a few days–noting is familiar here. He is agitated and irritable. He tells her about some of the horrible things he’s seen like a woman dying in childbirth. It’s interesting that this horror comes from Kevin telling Dana about a woman’s whose master beat her until the baby fell out of her.
I feel like Kevin is overreacting to his return–his agitation seems way too great. I realize that things are new in this house, but you’d think that even after five years, being home wouldn’t be such a bad thing. And then he tells a story like the above and while I still don’t understand why it’s not just a relief to be out of there, i can see that he’s got PTSD.
But he was jumpy–the sound of jet overhead freaked him out. Again, would five years without a jet overhead make you forget that they existed before hand?
Earlier Dana had been concerned that Kevin could be “won over” to the bad side. But he tells her that he had been helping slaves to escape. he even imagined that they might both want to go back to help more slaves escape–to do good historically speaking. (more…)
GlobalFEST is an annual event, held in New York City, in which bands from all over the world have an opportunity to showcase their music to an American audience. I’ve never been, and it sounds a little exhausting, but it also sounds really fun.
I Just Read About That... 