"Strange Fruit" is a song written and composed by
Abel Meeropol (under his pseudonym Lewis Allan) and recorded by
Billie Holiday in 1939. The lyrics were drawn from a poem by Meeropol published in 1937. The song protests the
lynching of Black Americans with lyrics that compare the victims to the fruit of trees. Such lynchings had reached a peak in the
Southern United States at the turn of the 20th century and the great majority of victims were black.[2] The song has been called "a declaration" and "the beginning of the
civil rights movement".[3]
Meeropol published the poem under the title "Bitter Fruit" in January 1937 in The New York Teacher, a
union magazine of the New York teachers union.[11][12] Though Meeropol had asked others (notably
Earl Robinson) to set his poems to music, he set "Strange Fruit" to music himself. First performed by Meeropol's wife and their friends in social contexts,[12] his protest song gained a certain success in and around New York. Meeropol, his wife and the Black vocalist Laura Duncan performed it at
Madison Square Garden.[13]
Billie Holiday's performances and recordings
One version of events claims that
Barney Josephson, the founder of
Café Society in
Greenwich Village, New York's first
integrated nightclub, heard the song and introduced it to
Billie Holiday. Other reports say that Robert Gordon, who was directing Holiday's show at Café Society, heard the song at
Madison Square Garden and introduced it to her.[11] Holiday first performed the song at Café Society in 1939. She said that singing it 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.[14] Because of the power of the song, Josephson drew up some rules: Holiday would close with it; the waiters would stop all service in advance; the room would be in darkness except for a spotlight on Holiday's face; and there would be no encore.[11] During the musical introduction to the song, Holiday stood with her eyes closed, as if she were evoking a prayer.
Holiday approached her recording label, Columbia, about the song, but the company feared reaction by record retailers in
the South, as well as negative reaction from affiliates of its co-owned radio network,
CBS.[15] When Holiday's producer
John Hammond also refused to record it, she turned to her friend
Milt Gabler, owner of the
Commodore label.[16] Holiday sang "Strange Fruit" for him a cappella, and moved him to tears. Columbia gave Holiday a one-session release from her contract so she could record it;
Frankie Newton's eight-piece Café Society Band was used for the session in an arrangement by Newton.[17] Because Gabler worried the song was too short, he asked pianist
Sonny White to improvise an introduction. On the recording, Holiday starts singing after 70 seconds.[11] It was recorded on April 20, 1939.[18] Gabler worked out a special arrangement with
Vocalion Records to record and distribute the song.[19]
Holiday recorded two major sessions of the song at Commodore, one in 1939 and one in 1944. The song was highly regarded; the 1939 recording eventually sold a million copies,[9] in time becoming Holiday's biggest-selling recording.
In her 1956 autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, Holiday suggested that she, together with Meeropol, her accompanist Sonny White, and arranger Danny Mendelsohn, set the poem to music. The writers
David Margolick and
Hilton Als dismissed that claim in their work Strange Fruit: The Biography of a Song, writing that hers was "an account that may set a record for most misinformation per column inch". When challenged, Holiday—whose autobiography had been
ghostwritten by
William Dufty—claimed, "I ain't never read that book."[20]
Holiday was so well known for her rendition of "Strange Fruit" that "she crafted a relationship to the song that would make them inseparable".[21] Holiday's 1939 version of the song was included in the
National Recording Registry on January 27, 2003.
In October 1939, Samuel Grafton of the New York Post said of "Strange Fruit", "If the anger of the exploited ever mounts high enough in the South, it now has its
Marseillaise."[22] The anti-lynching movement adopted "Strange Fruit" as its anthem.[23] Since the 1930s several unsuccessful attempts were made in Congress to have lynching made a federal crime which were stymied by filibusters in the Senate by Southerners. In an attempt to achieve a two-thirds majority in the Senate that would break the filibusters by southern senators, anti-racism activists were encouraged to mail copies of "Strange Fruit" to their senators.[24][25][26]
^McNally, Owen (March 30, 2000). "'Song of the century' chilling: Graphic lyrics of 'the first unmuted cry against racism' are making a comeback". Ottawa Citizen.