What is “Strange Fruit”?

Q: What is “Strange Fruit”?

Billie Holiday’s 1939 protest song about lynching (written by Abel Meeropol) — the blues tradition’s language of witness made explicit.

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Strange Fruit

Billie Holiday · 1939

Blues

’s 1939 protest song about lynching (written by Abel Meeropol) — the blues tradition’s language of witness made explicit.

Abel Meeropol, a Bronx schoolteacher writing as Lewis Allan, first published the lyric as a poem in 1937, then set it to music. Holiday began singing it in 1939 at Café Society, New York’s first integrated nightclub; she closed the set with it, lights down, no encore. Columbia would not record it — southern retailers and the CBS radio network were the stated fear — so she cut it on April 20, 1939, for Milt Gabler’s small Commodore label, with the Café Society band. It became the best-selling record of her career, and the blues tradition’s language of witness made explicit.

Billie Holiday, 1939

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Lyrics

English — Meeropol

Abel Meeropol (as Lewis Allan), poem 1937; song recorded by Billie Holiday, 1939

Still under U.S. copyright. Printed here for teaching, with attribution.

Southern trees bearing a strange fruit

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root

Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees

Pastoral scene of the gallant South

The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth

Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh

Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is a fruit for the crow to pluck

For the rain to wither, for the wind to suck

For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop

Here is a strange and bitter crop.

Source: African American Registry, “Strange Fruit” by Abel Meeropol

Lyrics are reproduced briefly for commentary and teaching, with attribution and a link to the source. They are not a substitute for the publisher’s edition.

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