I included this video as well as the lyrics & information about this song on my cultural blog (along with a sound file of Leadbelly's "Scottsboro Boys" song, the lyrics of that song, and information about the infamous case of the Scottsboro Boys). Google Pancocojams Two Songs About The Consequences Of Racism.
@cizbarca - The song is about lynching in the Jim Crow era (post-Reconstruction,pre-Civil Rights movement). The lyrics were written in 1937 by Abel Meeropol, and first published as a poem. The image that drove them was a photo of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in 1930, in Indiana (lynchings were not confined to the South; 90% were, 80% of the victims were Black). There's a good study guide at shmoop dot com slash strange-fruit.
I absolutely LOVE Billie Holiday and followed Gloomy Sunday here. But Holy Moly, this is horrifying! I had a German Aunt who was sent to to jail in Biloxi, in the late 1940's because she sat in the "wrong" section of the bus. She didn't speak English, but the bus driver thought she was getting fresh and she was pregnant at the time and just wanted to sit down. Apparently this was no good....This is a good reminder of a nightmare and a travesty of American history that should never be forgotten.
I probably sound like a retard but can someone explains this to me; I can tell it is about segregation, slavery,and the death of many blacks but what else
The strange furit are black men, lynched up in trees by nooses in a racist society. Fruit for the crows to pluck at and the sun to rot away, fruit with bloody juice, bulging eyes, mouths twisted in unendurable agony, the pretty smell of magnolia becoming foul with the overbearing stench of the burning flesh of a black man. A "pastoral" scene of a "gallant" South.
My God! I never hear this before. What power in the words and what power in Billie Holiday's face and voice! What horrifying eloquence! What horrifying dignity!
This song is very gruesome, sad, and haunting. My history teacher played this song for us today, and said that it is listed as the most influential song of the past hundred years, and I believe it
The Depth and Soul you feel when You listen to this is Amazing. It really makes me visualize the african americans hanging from a tree. And for Billie to never have seen something like that, must have been disturbing and frightening all in one. Beautiful all in all. This song also scares me a touch because of how much feeling and emotion that this song is soaked in. It sometimes makes me cry to think that people could to that kind of thing to another human being. :|
@killindean13 people need to let go? My great grandmother is still alive with all of her senses. She is 95 years old. She and my other grandparents would beg you to be quiet. I was born only 30+ years ago, and I was called a N***r at ages 5 and 8 or 9.
things were bad back then, but living in uk and being born in the last 20 years people need to let go, i hate the fact white people are meant to feel guilty for what our great great grand parents were like, I have never cared about colour and have certainly never used a slave!! so stop feeling oppressed!
@killindean13 Do you denounce your great great grand parents? Do you Caucasoids denounce your fore parents who committed these evils that you want us to forget? I'm Cherokee and Black and I've never met one white person who wasn't proud of their savage ancestors. Nor have I met one that was willing to give up the benefits that you all have reaped from our ancestors torturous suffering. Give up the benefits from your grandparents genocidal and enslaving endeavors first, then we'll move on.
@IzrailGhazi I didnt even know my great grandparents, and thats a stupid comment, I am sure we both have bad people in our family tree but it means nothing, if your great great grandmother tortured and killed a child is that your fault or problem?? and what benefits do you mean? cant get much bigger than being a president of the USA, move on because colour means fuck all to most these days and tbh there is more racist comments towards whites than blacks, so get over it
@IzrailGhazi and you never met my mother jailed for trying to block the doors at the opening of Gone with the Wind or my father dragged off by the french for attempting to give medical aid to Algerians massacred at Setif in 1945
i cant believe people in the south strongly believed this was the right thing to do to blacks...how would they like it! seeing someone they LOVED die right before they're eyes ...blacked suffered enough and you have to come in and make it even worse ..way to go klu klux klan or however its called or spelled i dont really CARE ..your not doing right
This was really depressing time in African American history. I think everyone should hear this song and think about the meaning. I enjoy singing and i sing older songs because they have more meaning. I cried even the first time i ever heard this song and I'm only 12.
This was really depressing time in African American history. I think everyone should hear this song and think about the meaning. I enjoy singing and i sing older songs because they have more meaning. I cried even the first time i ever heard this song and I'm only 12.
This was really depressing time in African American history. I think everyone should hear this song and think about the meaning. I enjoy singing and i sing older songs because they have more meaning. I cried even the first time i ever heard this song and I'm only 12.
I am strong proud and white, if my people got used and msde slaves i would be screaming mad looking for vengance, be proud of your culture your people , and our weird ticks this is whats makes us strong as a human race, forget haters foster strengtj and pride for what makes us who we ar
Billie Holiday was enroute by bus to a performance, they stopped for a pee parade when she climbed over the hill she seen a tree with something hanging from it, and the smell drew her closer, when she realized it was actually black men hanging from the tree thanks of course to those men who chose to hide their heads in sack clothes ...Ku Klux Klan...the song Strange Fruit was a product of that terrible day in her life when she realized just easy she too could become that fruit.
@jaclyn140 actually that was just the day she actually decided to sing the song it was a poem at first and then she was pressured into singing by the author and finally agreed when she saw the bodies hanging from the trees
@ww2footage Oh so then why during WW2 did black soldiers experience lyching. They were lynched once per week one with his congressional meddle of honor still hanging on his chest.
@ww2footage I really hope your joking. Do you know nothing of history? Many black men, women, AND children were lynched for no other reason than the color of their skin. They could be hung for anything (this includes all those who were just fighting for civil rights), no trial..nothing. White people who supported the blacks in their fight for civil rights were also lynched...cont..
@ww2footage And the lynchings were held in the middle of town...tickets were sold and white people traveled their with their kids to watch the lynching like we would watch concerts. It was entertainment to people back then. Now I'm sure there were lynchings that were because of a person having committed crime...but you can't ignore the thousands of people who were lynched in the name of racism... next you'll be saying that the Black Codes and the Jim Crow Laws never really existed.
I understand the song.... but can someone please go in depth with this song for me to fully understand it.. yeah, i get that it's about the lynching of the africans in south america... but please go through the lines.. thanks!
-this is a song that shall be remembered forever as people need to hear at the reality some of the africans had to face at the time. heart touching song
@megpy95 Strange fruit only in Africa - no dear those poplars and Magnolia probably tree still have the bear the blood of your very own black Americans!
@megpy95 Strange fruit only in Africa - no dear those poplars and Magnolia trees probably still have the bear the blood of your very own black Americans! Apartheid was best practiced in the good ole U S of A
I heard this song in music and counters for one of my exp classes
and the lyrics are dark and scary yet have so meany meaning and sadness and sorrowness all mixed into the song makes it so beautiful and i love this song :]
We must never forget the evil that was done during slavery and which continued through racism. As a white man, I can only ask black people to forgive what my ancestors did. Wish there was something I could do to make things right, but there is nothing more than words.
Sublime chanson, d'une puissance émotionnelle incomparable. Et quand on pense à l'époque où elle la chantait... Ceux qui ne l'ont pas encore fait, écoutez bien les paroles pour comprendre la métaphore de l'"étrange fruit".
May 31, 1959, she was taken 2 Metro Hospital New York suffering from liver & heart disease. Police officers stationed at the door 2 her room. She was arrested 4 drug possession & lay dying & her hospital room was raided by authorities. Holiday remained under police guard at the hospital until she died from cirrhosis of the liver July 17, 1959. In the final years of her life, she'd been progressively swindled out of her earnings, & she died with $0.70 in the bank & a $750 tabloid fee on her.
Arturo Villarreal, "Ms. Billie Holidays song was about racism in the south and how they dealt with colored people back in the 1900s through the 1930s. Her song describes the hanging bodies that are dangling from the trees and even goes as far as describing the stench of the dead bodies....The song was adopted and used as an anthem against lynching and other injustices that were being done to African-Americans."
U could see her anger and disgust. I did a PowerPoint in english on lynching...lynching was and is inhuman:'-( this song just paints the picture for u
@omesthehomes530 there's no reason to belittle that person for equating the death of one living being to another. If they were saying that we SHOULD kill people, but not animals, that's another story. However, I don't see how saying you don't want animals OR humans hanging is a bad thing...
her delivery of the song is so compelling...it jus pulls u in....& the lyrics are so well written u can imagine them...this is an essential song of our culture and representation of a struggle...we cant even fathom today
this makes me remember how my ancestors sacrificed their lives just so i can be alive and not fear persecution because of my skin tone soo gripping and compelling. . . .
This is the most important song of our time! A compelling poem, set to horrific imagery and deep profound vocals by the brilliant Billie Holiday. When i've heard the recording, i could feel the desperation and depression in her voice. but to see her performance is far more gripping and inspirational. thanks for posting
This has been flagged as spam show
Thank you for uploading this song.
I included this video as well as the lyrics & information about this song on my cultural blog (along with a sound file of Leadbelly's "Scottsboro Boys" song, the lyrics of that song, and information about the infamous case of the Scottsboro Boys). Google Pancocojams Two Songs About The Consequences Of Racism.
Thanks again.
azizip171 13 hours ago
I love Billie, but You guys need to hear this song in the Nina Simone's voice. That is just remarkable
FelixRMP 1 month ago
@cizbarca - The song is about lynching in the Jim Crow era (post-Reconstruction,pre-Civil Rights movement). The lyrics were written in 1937 by Abel Meeropol, and first published as a poem. The image that drove them was a photo of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in 1930, in Indiana (lynchings were not confined to the South; 90% were, 80% of the victims were Black). There's a good study guide at shmoop dot com slash strange-fruit.
sesuncedu 1 month ago
We listen to this in history class 3
koolerz28 1 month ago
I absolutely LOVE Billie Holiday and followed Gloomy Sunday here. But Holy Moly, this is horrifying! I had a German Aunt who was sent to to jail in Biloxi, in the late 1940's because she sat in the "wrong" section of the bus. She didn't speak English, but the bus driver thought she was getting fresh and she was pregnant at the time and just wanted to sit down. Apparently this was no good....This is a good reminder of a nightmare and a travesty of American history that should never be forgotten.
JadedRuby 1 month ago 4
So chilling.
forgetfullandstuff 2 months ago
Thankkk Yoouu
cizbarca 2 months ago
I probably sound like a retard but can someone explains this to me; I can tell it is about segregation, slavery,and the death of many blacks but what else
cizbarca 2 months ago
@cizbarca
The strange furit are black men, lynched up in trees by nooses in a racist society. Fruit for the crows to pluck at and the sun to rot away, fruit with bloody juice, bulging eyes, mouths twisted in unendurable agony, the pretty smell of magnolia becoming foul with the overbearing stench of the burning flesh of a black man. A "pastoral" scene of a "gallant" South.
megadork456 2 months ago
Comment removed
megadork456 2 months ago
My God! I never hear this before. What power in the words and what power in Billie Holiday's face and voice! What horrifying eloquence! What horrifying dignity!
Just stunning -- I'm close to speechless.
ZorroJulius10 2 months ago
Brings tears to your eyes.
silkaem 3 months ago
This song is very gruesome, sad, and haunting. My history teacher played this song for us today, and said that it is listed as the most influential song of the past hundred years, and I believe it
LieutenantMatt2 3 months ago 4
@LieutenantMatt2 sounds like a great teacher :)
fluffythingwithspike 3 months ago
i want to sample this song for one of my songs
and to believe the teacher had us listen to this in english
torreonebitelott 3 months ago
That sounds like some nasty ass fruit......
pillowsquish18 3 months ago
The version on Sons of Anarchy was much better than this one. But I know this is the classic.
TheAtheistSocialist 3 months ago
The Depth and Soul you feel when You listen to this is Amazing. It really makes me visualize the african americans hanging from a tree. And for Billie to never have seen something like that, must have been disturbing and frightening all in one. Beautiful all in all. This song also scares me a touch because of how much feeling and emotion that this song is soaked in. It sometimes makes me cry to think that people could to that kind of thing to another human being. :|
Helen7550 4 months ago
bless billie bless abe meeropol bless Troy
vivascargill1 5 months ago
Here's to you, Troy Davis.
Berrylibre18 5 months ago 9
In loving memory of Troy Anthony Davis.
espartano132 5 months ago 12
@killindean13 people need to let go? My great grandmother is still alive with all of her senses. She is 95 years old. She and my other grandparents would beg you to be quiet. I was born only 30+ years ago, and I was called a N***r at ages 5 and 8 or 9.
dynamitesoul1 5 months ago
things were bad back then, but living in uk and being born in the last 20 years people need to let go, i hate the fact white people are meant to feel guilty for what our great great grand parents were like, I have never cared about colour and have certainly never used a slave!! so stop feeling oppressed!
killindean13 8 months ago
@killindean13 Do you denounce your great great grand parents? Do you Caucasoids denounce your fore parents who committed these evils that you want us to forget? I'm Cherokee and Black and I've never met one white person who wasn't proud of their savage ancestors. Nor have I met one that was willing to give up the benefits that you all have reaped from our ancestors torturous suffering. Give up the benefits from your grandparents genocidal and enslaving endeavors first, then we'll move on.
IzrailGhazi 7 months ago
@IzrailGhazi I didnt even know my great grandparents, and thats a stupid comment, I am sure we both have bad people in our family tree but it means nothing, if your great great grandmother tortured and killed a child is that your fault or problem?? and what benefits do you mean? cant get much bigger than being a president of the USA, move on because colour means fuck all to most these days and tbh there is more racist comments towards whites than blacks, so get over it
killindean13 7 months ago
@IzrailGhazi well you never met J.W. Davis white share cropper lynched for joining the share croppers union of alabama
vivascargill1 5 months ago
@IzrailGhazi and you never met my mother jailed for trying to block the doors at the opening of Gone with the Wind or my father dragged off by the french for attempting to give medical aid to Algerians massacred at Setif in 1945
vivascargill1 5 months ago
i cant believe people in the south strongly believed this was the right thing to do to blacks...how would they like it! seeing someone they LOVED die right before they're eyes ...blacked suffered enough and you have to come in and make it even worse ..way to go klu klux klan or however its called or spelled i dont really CARE ..your not doing right
MegaLil25 10 months ago
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This was really depressing time in African American history. I think everyone should hear this song and think about the meaning. I enjoy singing and i sing older songs because they have more meaning. I cried even the first time i ever heard this song and I'm only 12.
krazyfunsty13 10 months ago
This was really depressing time in African American history. I think everyone should hear this song and think about the meaning. I enjoy singing and i sing older songs because they have more meaning. I cried even the first time i ever heard this song and I'm only 12.
krazyfunsty13 10 months ago
This was really depressing time in African American history. I think everyone should hear this song and think about the meaning. I enjoy singing and i sing older songs because they have more meaning. I cried even the first time i ever heard this song and I'm only 12.
krazyfunsty13 10 months ago
im african american and that was the most beautiful and haunting song i have heard in my 14 year old life!!
blubirdstudioz 11 months ago 3
I am strong proud and white, if my people got used and msde slaves i would be screaming mad looking for vengance, be proud of your culture your people , and our weird ticks this is whats makes us strong as a human race, forget haters foster strengtj and pride for what makes us who we ar
divinefart 1 year ago
Billie Holiday was enroute by bus to a performance, they stopped for a pee parade when she climbed over the hill she seen a tree with something hanging from it, and the smell drew her closer, when she realized it was actually black men hanging from the tree thanks of course to those men who chose to hide their heads in sack clothes ...Ku Klux Klan...the song Strange Fruit was a product of that terrible day in her life when she realized just easy she too could become that fruit.
jaclyn140 1 year ago
@jaclyn140 actually that was just the day she actually decided to sing the song it was a poem at first and then she was pressured into singing by the author and finally agreed when she saw the bodies hanging from the trees
nsvv1233 2 months ago
creepy.
missperfect121995 1 year ago
I heard this song was in fact about the Ku Klux Klan ?! Is that true ? *O* Cause I can't see it ..
PaiintDriP 1 year ago
@PaiintDriP
Strange fruit,
Is a metaphor, for black people hanging on trees :P
"Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze"
See :P
MyTravisValentine 1 year ago 2
This song seriously creaps the shit out of me. This reminds me of some creapy song played in a horror movie durring some horrific massacre.
ChargersrBA 1 year ago
i cry...
duzildorf 1 year ago
American History
anadbeau 1 year ago
this song is silly sick fuck brain wash ... lynch was not about blacks , it was about criminals
ww2footage 1 year ago
@ww2footage Oh so then why during WW2 did black soldiers experience lyching. They were lynched once per week one with his congressional meddle of honor still hanging on his chest.
Ryooken 1 year ago
@ww2footage I really hope your joking. Do you know nothing of history? Many black men, women, AND children were lynched for no other reason than the color of their skin. They could be hung for anything (this includes all those who were just fighting for civil rights), no trial..nothing. White people who supported the blacks in their fight for civil rights were also lynched...cont..
YoungWisdom1701 1 year ago
Comment removed
YoungWisdom1701 1 year ago
@ww2footage And the lynchings were held in the middle of town...tickets were sold and white people traveled their with their kids to watch the lynching like we would watch concerts. It was entertainment to people back then. Now I'm sure there were lynchings that were because of a person having committed crime...but you can't ignore the thousands of people who were lynched in the name of racism... next you'll be saying that the Black Codes and the Jim Crow Laws never really existed.
YoungWisdom1701 1 year ago
the nina simone version is my favorite.
SamieVoice 1 year ago
very heavy.... excellent post- thank you. Billie near the very end of her life and at her most soulful. excellent post! thanks again
pipewatcher 1 year ago
I understand the song.... but can someone please go in depth with this song for me to fully understand it.. yeah, i get that it's about the lynching of the africans in south america... but please go through the lines.. thanks!
-this is a song that shall be remembered forever as people need to hear at the reality some of the africans had to face at the time. heart touching song
megpy95 1 year ago
@megpy95 you must not be from around here...
pipewatcher 1 year ago
@megpy95 Strange fruit only in Africa - no dear those poplars and Magnolia probably tree still have the bear the blood of your very own black Americans!
jaclyn140 1 year ago
@megpy95 Strange fruit only in Africa - no dear those poplars and Magnolia trees probably still have the bear the blood of your very own black Americans! Apartheid was best practiced in the good ole U S of A
jaclyn140 1 year ago
Do you think she sang this in America, and was still able to receive applause? Wish I knew where the video was recorded.
CraftsByMama 1 year ago
ha. very creepy video:P
MikylaMorosity 1 year ago
This is like a song you would hear in a horror film. So sad and grousum, the south was at the time.
YurisDisciple 1 year ago
I heard this song in music and counters for one of my exp classes
and the lyrics are dark and scary yet have so meany meaning and sadness and sorrowness all mixed into the song makes it so beautiful and i love this song :]
love333strawberry 1 year ago
Lynch
bucsnum21 1 year ago
Oh my God o_o I got chills and the urge to cry. This song is just so creepy and sad, while at the same time so beautiful.
MelodramaticAct 1 year ago
This is a very important song. It is really deep.
We must never forget the evil that was done during slavery and which continued through racism. As a white man, I can only ask black people to forgive what my ancestors did. Wish there was something I could do to make things right, but there is nothing more than words.
makinawdandy6699 1 year ago
@makinawdandy6699 recognizing the fact that it happened is already a good start
mennelikP 1 year ago
this makes me sad..
BrightEyedBurglar 1 year ago
I think billie holiday is amazing ! her voice is real and raw
sophie051192 1 year ago
Sublime chanson, d'une puissance émotionnelle incomparable. Et quand on pense à l'époque où elle la chantait... Ceux qui ne l'ont pas encore fait, écoutez bien les paroles pour comprendre la métaphore de l'"étrange fruit".
AureliaLemonnier 1 year ago
Only song thats made me cry
SarahAileen496 1 year ago
shes still at the end...
JohnnyDreamboat 1 year ago
chills
bookluver1 1 year ago
was fürn ödes lied... ich bin auch schwarz nun mach nich son theater
TheHirschmeister 2 years ago
goodness. this song is deep :(
littlegirlalyssa 2 years ago
no 1 like billie
bazookajoe55 2 years ago
May 31, 1959, she was taken 2 Metro Hospital New York suffering from liver & heart disease. Police officers stationed at the door 2 her room. She was arrested 4 drug possession & lay dying & her hospital room was raided by authorities. Holiday remained under police guard at the hospital until she died from cirrhosis of the liver July 17, 1959. In the final years of her life, she'd been progressively swindled out of her earnings, & she died with $0.70 in the bank & a $750 tabloid fee on her.
Rauhel 2 years ago
Comment removed
Rauhel 2 years ago
A chillingly beautiful anti-racism anthem. We do not need any more strange fruit anywhere in the world.
FrauleinGee 2 years ago 24
Arturo Villarreal, "Ms. Billie Holidays song was about racism in the south and how they dealt with colored people back in the 1900s through the 1930s. Her song describes the hanging bodies that are dangling from the trees and even goes as far as describing the stench of the dead bodies....The song was adopted and used as an anthem against lynching and other injustices that were being done to African-Americans."
aldo88120 2 years ago
U could see her anger and disgust. I did a PowerPoint in english on lynching...lynching was and is inhuman:'-( this song just paints the picture for u
bmclol 2 years ago
We listened to this in class today. Freaked me out.
MrTerpz 2 years ago
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how many strange fruits hanging in the slaughter houses? how many strange fruits in our daily meals? how much pain cause for our sake?
No more meat or dairy in my plate.
purehermit 2 years ago
you are nuts, in this song there is a powerfull message to human beings not for a cow. Look out for your own species you fool
omesthehomes530 2 years ago 3
@omesthehomes530 there's no reason to belittle that person for equating the death of one living being to another. If they were saying that we SHOULD kill people, but not animals, that's another story. However, I don't see how saying you don't want animals OR humans hanging is a bad thing...
kearabob 1 year ago
are you fucking stupid?
Mrvort 2 years ago
its so horrible. so powerful. cant hear it without crying.
xspunk007 2 years ago 2
powerful song
poolfarm2 2 years ago 4
AMAZING
lilmszmamita 2 years ago
thats so sad...
pinksocksandstufff 2 years ago 2
holy shit they have good timing
OpakeArawra2 2 years ago
i was watching tales from da hood when i first heard this song
SEXYNIGGA6969 2 years ago 2
Rite lol me 2
pistolklik 2 years ago
very good imagery but it creeps me out
BumTingaNooNoo 2 years ago
her delivery of the song is so compelling...it jus pulls u in....& the lyrics are so well written u can imagine them...this is an essential song of our culture and representation of a struggle...we cant even fathom today
memphisdime88 2 years ago 7
this makes me remember how my ancestors sacrificed their lives just so i can be alive and not fear persecution because of my skin tone soo gripping and compelling. . . .
rickelle2011 2 years ago 4
freaky, this kind of scared me,
but dont get me wrong, the musical techniques and the shocking lyrics were effective.
this is strange, but powerfull.
well done Billie!
kikiersten 2 years ago
ah this song is amazing! its so creepy but so meaningful.....
nekoichigoanime 3 years ago 24
this is a strong song
oathkeeperblade 3 years ago 8
This is the most important song of our time! A compelling poem, set to horrific imagery and deep profound vocals by the brilliant Billie Holiday. When i've heard the recording, i could feel the desperation and depression in her voice. but to see her performance is far more gripping and inspirational. thanks for posting
MissLisa1970 3 years ago 41
the goddess of jazz!
Black2295 3 years ago 6