| "Strange Fruit" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Single by Billie Holiday | ||||
| B-side | "Fine and Mellow" | |||
| Released | 1939 | |||
| Recorded | April 20, 1939[1] | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 3:02 | |||
| Label | Commodore | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Abel Meeropol | |||
| Producer(s) | Milt Gabler | |||
| Billie Holiday singles chronology | ||||
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| Official Audio | ||||
| "Strange Fruit" on YouTube | ||||
"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]: 561 The song was described as "a declaration of war" and "the beginning of the civil rights movement" by Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet Ertegun.[3][4]
Meeropol set his lyrics to music with his wife Anne Shaffer and the singer Laura Duncan and performed it as a protest song in New York City venues in the late 1930s, including Madison Square Garden. Holiday's version was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1978.[5] It was also included in the "Songs of the Century" list of the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts.[6] In 2002, "Strange Fruit" was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".[7]
- ^ "Billie Holiday recording sessions". Billieholidaysongs.com. Archived from the original on May 28, 2010. Retrieved April 20, 2011.
- ^ Myrdal, Gunnar (1944). An American Dilemma. Harper & Brothers.
- ^ Margolick, David (2000). "Chapter One". Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday, Café Society, and an Early Cry for Civil Rights. Running Press. ISBN 0-7624-0677-1 – via The New York Times.
Ahmet Ertegun, the legendary record producer, called 'Strange Fruit,' which Holiday first sang sixteen years before Rosa Parks refused to yield her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, 'a declaration of war ... the beginning of the civil rights movement.'
- ^ Sonnenberg, Rhonda (September 29, 2023). "Artist collaborations with social justice organizations propel change". Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on June 16, 2024. Retrieved October 28, 2024.
- ^ Bessette Knight, Peg. "No Encore | The 100th Anniversary of Billie Holiday's Birth and the Legacy of "Strange Fruit"". ProQuest (Blog). Retrieved June 16, 2015.
- ^ "Songs of the Century". CNN. March 7, 2001. Archived from the original on September 13, 2024. Retrieved October 28, 2024.
- ^ Allen, Erin (April 16, 2015). "The Power of a Poem". Library of Congress (Blog). Retrieved June 18, 2021.