Billie Holiday – Strange Fruit

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Southern trees bear 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 magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

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Lyrics submitted by Beltane

Track duration: 03:11

"Strange Fruit" as written by Frost,damon/phiri,aaron /

Lyrics © EMI Music Publishing, Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.

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Strange Fruit song meanings
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20 Comments

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  • -1
    General Comment:This is a fantastic website and I can not recommend you guys enough. Full of useful resource and great layout very easy on the eyes. Please do keep up this great work.I'll use this information to provide researchpapers.wopop.com/
    ">research papers for my friends.
    Flagged yannakhoroon March 27, 2012   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:I found this song while looking up others by Billie Holiday and fell in love. It made my stomach ache to feel the song. There's a really good book of sheet music called "Taboo Songs" that contains the music for "Strange Fruit". I would highly suggest playing it.
    Flag dubhmactireon July 31, 2011   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:A true blues song. Even today, it can still affect people...even people like me, who have hardly had to deal with racism.
    Flag loverly23on September 22, 2010   Link
  • -1
    General Comment:to correct SLYcraft, the man who wrote it was white, but he was also jewish, which left him vaulnerable to the lynching too, especially since groups like the Ku Klux Klan where such a threat. it was a brave move on both there parts (his and billies)
    the sad thing was, it was an everyday sight to see a rotting corpse hanging from the tree's in an otherwise perfect southern scenery. the song is eerie and although i pitty the way aafrican americans were treated back then, it doesn't make me feel sad or sorry or sick, i love the song, i love the way it is sung, i love the subject, and i love the thought.
    Flag Zombie_Eateron April 11, 2008   Link
    • 1 Reply
  • 0
    General Comment:And the author was a very smart man. After looking over the lyrics a bunch of times, I remember now, from a BIO class that i just took, that the Tulip Poplar is actually a Magnolia. Hence, the author first talks of the bodies hanging from the poplar trees, then of the smell of magnolia. Such deep lyrics.
    Flagged lovethemusic89on December 31, 2007   Link
  • +1
    General Comment:I first heard this song 3 days ago, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since then. I saw the photograph of Thomas Shipp and Abraham Smith that inspired the lyrics, and it gave me chills. Why haven't I ever heard of this until now, as an 18 yr old who found it by chance? I think every person who goes through high school should be exposed to this poem. It can alter and has altered lives and history. It has helped me to put things into perspective, and I know that anytime I want a reality check, all I have to do is think of these lyrics. It's just so incredible and terrible at the same time. Brilliant.
    Flag lovethemusic89on December 31, 2007   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:The song began as a poem written by a jewish school teacher Abel Meeropol. Inspired by a photograph of the lynching of Thomas
    Shipp and Abraham Smith. He put it to music himself because no one else had the "balls" to do it at the time...Billie of course had the "balls" to perform it, even when she was forbidden to do it..........The song of course is heart breaking and inspires so many different feelings depending on the race and/or experiences of the listener. God, I love Billie Holiday and the paradox of strength and weakness she represented in both her personal and professional life. Rest in peace honey..
    Flag wrdchkon March 18, 2007   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:So damn powerfull.
    Flag xxToxixxon February 25, 2007   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:i have to my english research project, which counts like 50% of my final grade, over this song.

    so i thought i would go on here to look up and see what the song was really about.

    its actually helped a lot
    Flag ktlarneyon February 23, 2007   Link
  • +1
    General Comment:I guess I am beleaguering a topic that was already beautifully addressed by SLYcrafts but this is such an important song and Billie Holiday's strength and bravery are greatly misrepresented when a History teacher claims that she did not want to do it and was pressured into doing it. The opposite happened. People were trying to prevent her. Her own label refused to record it Some clubs would not allow her to sing it. There were a few times when people in the audience physically attacked her. So it was through her own indomitable will that the song ever came out for us to hear it

    This article briefly describes the history of Strange Fruit You'll understand why Billie Holiday cried after singing it:

    ladyday.net/stuf/…
    Flag eunice13on February 06, 2007   Link

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