Billie Holiday Strange Fruit - Metaphor of Terror

a gallery of terrorism & genocide the past 100 years

STRANGE FRUIT by Billie Holiday is as powerful and painful a message today as it was many yesterdays ago ... in that context i made this video

Recording Notes ---
Lady Sings The Blues: Billie Holiday Story Vol. 4

see i-tunes @ $9.99 ... or just buy the single
--- the demo sounds very clean ---

Lady Sings The Blues: Billie Holiday Story Vol. 4

Artist: Billie Holiday

Poem/Lyric: Lewis Allen

Guest Artists:
Charlie Shavers - trumpet
Wynton Kelly - piano
Aaron Bell - bass
Lenny McBrowne - drums
Kenny Burrell - guitar

Recorded: 1956
Genre: Jazz ~ Jazz Vocals
Label: Verve (USA)
Catalog No: VRV 3145214292
Release Date: 1995-03-21

Track List * Say It Isn't So * I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm * I Wished On The Moon * Always * Everything Happens To Me * Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me * Ain't Misbehavin' * Trav'lin' Light * I Must Have That Man! * Some Other Spring * Lady Sings The Blues * Strange Fruit * God Bless The Child * Good Morning Heartache * No Good Man * Rehearsal For God Bless The Child

................................

Category:

Music

Tags:

• racism
• Jihad
• nazi
• Billie
• Holiday
• Strange
• Fruit
• blues
• genocide
• Islam
• Iraq
• lynching
• terrorism
• 9/11
• blacks

[fubar50cat]

well, the song is about racism, and the result, hanging! In a way you are denigrating this by equating acts of war, or political genocide with it. I mean we all agree, what you are showing is horrendous. But this song is a black woman that is confronting her entire society, point blank, about you guys are killing and hanging black men, guilty of anything, or not. The video is god though, just wrong song

[xternalfixator]

@fubar50cat lynchings are occurring around the world at this very moment more than ever before more people are hearing and singing this song as Billie Holiday sang Strange Fruit against racism of blacks in America, people around the world sing Strange Fruit protesting conditions of inhumanity in their own countries i think thats a good thing that is a tribute to the song and to Billie Holiday and the power of its universal message against injustice wherever & whenever it happens .

[hoglo729]

I disagree, the trumpet is brilliant.

[bttzd]

☸ڿڰۣ—

[bnjmne]

@fubar50cat I agree, you can't relate the song to any genocide or war around the world. If I were to relate this to our age, I would put images of those who are still being death sentenced today, now not hanged in trees but electrocuted or "mercifully" poisoned.

[Foolscapfantasy]

What do you think unjust war is, other than the strange fruit on a world scale? You think the receiving families who are innocent in Pakistan but die when predator drones waste their lives when trying to target terrorists? That's strange fruit, my friend, that same burning flesh as the man takes his best shot at ruling over everyone else's lives to increase his own pleasure and boost his own lacking sense of self. It's not just outward prejudice. It's what causes all the death.

[gotehorn]

Many young people today don't seem aware of how recent legal racism was. While slavery had been outlawed it wasn't until the 1960s civil rights legislation that there was an end to legal segregation and the enabling of full voting rights to all United States citizens. When this song was written racism was essentially legal and common in many states.

[TheVictor1100]

7 people dont give a shit about what happened to all of these people

[shaggymattrocks]

she has a very creepy voice...

[BrianS1981]

@hogs1629 Billie Holiday first sang it in the 'thirties. Her career was over before Nina's even began! It was originally written as a poem by Abel Meeropol in '36 and first performed by Holiday 3 years later at Café Society in Greenwich (NY). Simone was only 6 when that performance happened.

[hogs1629]

this song is by nina simone.....billie holiday did a version of it

[MrsTarmale]

BRILLIANT SONG.. Who would dislike such an honest song?

[plutonium78]

Amazing video!!

[cinamongirl1000]

I enjoyed this video. It points out that racism is not about blacks and whites.

Thank you for putting it together and sharing it on here.

Canadian Girl