Song 10 "Strange Fruit"

By Billie Holiday.




When it was written.
1939.

What it is about.
This song is about the lynchings that were occuring in the southern states with frightening rapidity. African Americans were haging from trees like "strange fruit" as the song puts it.

How the story is told.
It has kind of an extended metaphor in it. The lynched African Americans were the strange fruit on the southern trees. "Here is fruit for the crows to pluck, For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck, For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop, Here is a strange and bitter crop."

My thoughts.
This song really was quite full of emotions. Listening to it made me not only sad, but also a little frightened. It was also amazing that such a short little song could convey so much.


What we can learn.

This song teaches us about the condition of African Americans at this time. Lynchings, the song suggests, were common events, completely norman, at least in the south. They had an absolutely frigtening mass of people against them, nearly the whole southern part of the country.