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"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
Holiday was in the middle of recording for Columbia in the late 1930s when she was introduced to "Strange Fruit", a song by Abel Meeropol based on his poem about lynching. Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx , used the pseudonym "Lewis Allan" for the poem, which was set to music and performed at teachers' union meetings. [ 46 ]
Meeropol wrote the anti-lynching poem "Strange Fruit" (1937), first published as "Bitter Fruit" in a teacher union publication. He later set it to music. The song was recorded and performed by Billie Holiday and Nina Simone. [6] Holiday notes in the book Lady Sings the Blues that she co-wrote the music to the song with Meeropol and Sonny White.
Get to know the story behind Billie Holiday's controversial "Strange Fruit," now the subject of Hulu biopic "The United States vs. Billie Holiday."
Today, “Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday, “A Change is Gonna Come,” Sam Cooke and “What’s Going On,” Marvin Gaye remain relevant to Black America.
Billie Holiday didn’t particularly enjoy singing “Strange Fruit,” a chilling anti-lynching anthem that compared Black bodies to fruit hanging from a tree, but she knew it was too important ...
In 1939, Columbia Records refused to let Billie Holiday record the anti-lynching protest song "Strange Fruit". Milt Gabler invited her to record it for his small specialty label Commodore Records, and Columbia granted her a one-time exemption from her contract to do so, in which she recorded four songs (material for two 78rpm records).
In her 1956 autobiography, singer Billie Holiday wrote that Smith named the book after her 1939 song "Strange Fruit", which was about lynching and racism against African Americans. Smith maintained the book's title referred to the "damaged, twisted people (both black and white) who are the products or results of our racist culture." [3] [4] [5]