Analyse "strange fruit"

« The song we have chosen to present to you is Strange fruit, by Billie Holiday. It was originally published as a poem named “Bitter fruit” in 1937, by the jewish teacher Abel Meeropol .

He presented his poem under his pen name Lewis Allan.....He made the poem as a protest against racicm in America, particulary the lynchings of African Americans in the southern sta tes of the US.

Soon after he published the poem he gave it a melody, and set it to music.

The song was first performed in 1938 by Meeropol’s wife, and black voacalist Laura Duncan.

On one of the performances , the song was discovered by a manager at the jazz club “Café Society”.

After he heard the song, he presented it for Billie Holiday, who wanted to cover it.

Later on, after a few weeks she sang a revamped verson of Strange fruit, and it was then the song really was brung out in the spottlight.

Let’s move on! Now we are going to listen to the song It protested American racism , particularly the lynching of African Americans .

The lyrics in the song are about the lynching that happened in the Southern states of the US on the Afro - Americans.

The great majority of the victims were black. Abel Meeropol was a je wish -American writer, teacher and songwriter, and presented the peom under his pseudonym Lewis Allan, as a protest against lynchings .

In the poem, Meeropol expressed his horror at lynchings.

There have been made many different versions of the song by different artists, like Nina Simone , but one of them is a bit more known than the others: 20.

April 1939 a jazz -singer named Billie Holiday made her version of the song, and it turned out to become her biggest hit, the most known version of the poem, but also the most influential protest song of the 20th century How did Holiday get to know the poem? Holiday’s manager Barney Josephson, introduced her to the powerful poem, and she wanted to make a cover to it.

When Holiday later was interviewed after she had made the song, s he said that singing “Strange fruit” made her fearful of retaliation, but because its imagery reminded her of her father, she continued to sing the piece, making it a regular part of her live performances later on. ANALYSIS: The song's lyrics are an extended metaphor linking a tree’s fruit with victims of lynching.

[VERS 1] • “southern trees bear a strange fruit”/“Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees ” Bemoaning the lynching of African -Americans in the south of the USA, the trees in the south bear a different kind of fruit: people .

• • “Black Bodies swinging in the southern breeze”. »