A Song - Strange Fruit

Strange Fruit - Billie Holiday

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.

This Song is composed by Billie Holiday, a black singer who was popular with both White people and Black people.

The song makes obvious references to Lynching - The fruit appears only in the South (Which was against the freedom of Negroes), it also has a few lines which refer to the Lynched Person - "The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth as well as Then the sudden smell of burning flesh"

The song is more poignant, as it only implies the Lynching, but it does not explicitly state it is a lynching. This increases the effectiveness of the Song as the listener automatically makes their own inference about the lyrics, so that the message is stronger. However, I also find the lyrics very poignant as it highlights the irony of "gallant south" since the message is conflicting - Gallant yet they bully and oppress others.