WEEK OF STRANGE FRUIT

Billie Holiday - Strange fruit

The strange fruit referred to in this "song" (unless you consider the term song to be a reductive one, similar to "ditty," in which case it ought to be included among the immortal works of human ingenuity...) is actually the corpse of a black man hung from a tree, in an era when, formally beyond the period of slavery, in the South (but not only) of the USA, such an end was reserved for colored individuals even merely suspected of any crime, from cattle theft to stealing an apple from a white man's tree... and sometimes even for no valid reason at all, simply as an example for the "blacks who get too uppity"...

We owe the piece to an American communist professor, Abel Meropol, who initially wrote it in the form of a simple poem and then set it to music, presenting it to Holiday, who recorded it in 1939, fully aware that she was dealing with a text that did not reference the "usual" themes of her repertoire, such as love in its most painful forms and abandonment. Almost immediately, it became her personal anthem against segregation and, inevitably, a standard still performed today by those who wish not only to challenge themselves as performers of songs but, above all, to immerse themselves in the horror of racism and complete moral blindness. Among the most memorable versions, I would highlight those by Robert Wyatt and Annie Lennox, particularly poignant.