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Total ratings: 1447
Length: 3:00
Plays (last 30 days): 1
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swingin' in the Southern breeze
Strange fruit hangin' from the poplar trees
Pastoral scene of the gallant South
The bulgin' eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolias sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burnin' flesh
Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the tree to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop
LOL.... not yet but give DeShitsus time.
Yeh, ban it but the world will never forget it..
Hasn't this song been banned in Florida, at least in the schools?
LOL.... not yet but give DeShitsus time.
Hasn't this song been banned in Florida, at least in the schools?
Absolutely!
I always cry when I hear this
I always read when I see this.
I have given 10. So, your 10 plus mine = 20 :)
Add my 10 to that
If I recall accurately, Mr. Meeropol & his wife took in the Rosenberg children after their parents were executed
This has to be the darkest song I've ever heard
Very haunting and a reminder of how wicked humans can be to each other.
I wonder if parts of the USA have ever moved on??
c.
c.
edit: I went through my ratings and down-rated all but ten songs. Nothing against the other fine artists, just that some songs are bigger than the artists themselves. Or the song makes them bigger, I don't know. Recording this song (in 1939!) required courage I can not fathom.
c.
I wonder if parts of the USA have ever moved on??
Sorry. It's a 20 - but I can give no more than 10 :(
I have given 10. So, your 10 plus mine = 20 :)
Kudos for playing this song, Bill. A reminder of how horrific life was for the blacks in the segregated South. And an ongoing reminder of just how far we still have to go.
Yes it is true that life in the segregated South was horrific. But after the Great Migration, the ghettos of the North and West reveal that, as you have said, we have far to go.
As Charles M. Blow puts it in The Devil you Know: "... Racism wasn't and isn't geography dependent, but proximity and scale dependent. Black people fled the horrors of the racist South for the so-called liberal cities of the North and West, trading the devil they knew for the devil they didn't, only to come to the painful realization that the devil is the devil."
Strange Fruit, as Billie Holiday renders it, is hauntingly beautiful and a gut punch reminder of the terrors of racism. As others have said here, the lynchings are re-enacted whenever an African American gets killed just for being black.
"Originally a poem called BitterFruit, it was written by the Jewish school teacher Abel Meeropol under the pseudonym Lewis Allen in response to lynching in US southern states. “I wrote Strange Fruit because I hate lynching, and I hate injustice, and I hate the people who perpetuate it,” Meeropol said in 1971."
Strange Fruit: The most shocking song of all time?
"Samuel Grafton, a columnist for the New York Post, wrote of the song: “It will, even after the tenth hearing, make you blink and hold onto your chair. Even now, as I think of it, the short hair on the back of my neck tightens and I want to hit somebody. And I think I know who.”"
c.
To those who would deny the humanity of another simply because of their color, the slant of their eyes, the turn of their nose or cultural back-ground. If you feel this way, if you allow such as this song depicts to occur; if you promote it as a normal consideration of being better than those you attack, then you give carte blanche to having it be done to you some day.
Call it retribution. Call it Karma. Call it "What goes around comes around." Whatever you call it it's what happens when you practice hate against innocence. You, too, will become strange fruit.
Highlow
American Net'Zen
Strange Fruit: The most shocking song of all time?
I have to find time to watch.
"The lynching of Michael Donald in Mobile, Alabama on March 21, 1981, was one of the last reported lynchings in the United States."
James Byrd was effectively lynched in 1998 in Jasper Texas. As noted below there are many, many more recent(ish) incidents that have every hallmark of a lynching. Not even including actions of 'peace officers'.
c.
I'll triple the Bill love but with a 9 rating. Long Live RP and short live racism!!
Nowadays black people do not get lynched anymore by hanging them from a tree, but get shot in back in the streets by white cops.
What's is the difference?
Rascism is rascism.
Except when they get shot by black cops. Racism is racism. But what's going on today is not that clear-cut. And in the words of Albert Einstein, "this problem is not going to get solved by using the same level of thinking that was in place when it was created." The police in America needs to take a long hard look at itself and how they do their job, but they're less likely to do so if they're being characterized as mindless, heartless, racists. Personal attacks rarely lead to introspection.
The only contemporary song that comes close from an emotional standpoint would be Johnny Cash's rendition of "Hurt".
From wiki: ""Strange Fruit" is a song performed most famously by Billie Holiday, who first sang and recorded it in 1939. Written by the teacher Abel Meeropol as a poem, it exposed American racism, particularly the lynching of African Americans. Such lynchings had occurred chiefly in the South but also in other regions of the United States."
(Yes, the "strange fruit" was the black corpses hanging from the trees.)
The Meeropols took in the Rosenberg children, after the executions. They were pretty far left, in McCarthy time. And they lived their beliefs.
Nowadays black people do not get lynched anymore by hanging them from a tree, but get shot in back in the streets by white cops.
What's is the difference?
Rascism is rascism.
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swingin' in the Southern breeze
Strange fruit hangin' from the poplar trees
I knew they would eventually add this one!
I wonder how many times it was uploaded...
6Billie Holiday - Strange Fruitsorry34/8 (81%)320
Please, it has to be time to realise that this self promoting, cut and paste individual has no care for anything other than narcism.
READ THE LYRICS PAL and then think hard about making joke comments.
The only contemporary song that comes close from an emotional standpoint would be Johnny Cash's rendition of "Hurt".
From wiki: ""Strange Fruit" is a song performed most famously by Billie Holiday, who first sang and recorded it in 1939. Written by the teacher Abel Meeropol as a poem, it exposed American racism, particularly the lynching of African Americans. Such lynchings had occurred chiefly in the South but also in other regions of the United States."
(Yes, the "strange fruit" was the black corpses hanging from the trees.)
Thank you. Spot on.
Let's add more comments and see if we can get those 'other' comments off the first page...
Everybody in my mushrooming multitude of churches be dancing buck ass naked... love this song... love sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll...
Well hooray for violent institutionalized racism, I guess.
Everybody in my mushrooming multitude of churches be dancing buck ass naked... love this song... love sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll...
Really? Even commenting like that on this song? Are you even paying attention to the songs you're referring to anymore or just posting the same sh*t everywhere without any regard to its meaning? You're a sad and sick individual, RT.
Everybody in my mushrooming multitude of churches be dancing buck ass naked... love this song... love sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll...
Completely bizarre and perhaps innapropriate response to this song
The only contemporary song that comes close from an emotional standpoint would be Johnny Cash's rendition of "Hurt".
From wiki: ""Strange Fruit" is a song performed most famously by Billie Holiday, who first sang and recorded it in 1939. Written by the teacher Abel Meeropol as a poem, it exposed American racism, particularly the lynching of African Americans. Such lynchings had occurred chiefly in the South but also in other regions of the United States."
(Yes, the "strange fruit" was the black corpses hanging from the trees.)
Lol I knew they would eventually add this one!
Anyone know who's playing the horn?