"Strange Fruit" is a song performed most famously by Billie Holiday, who first sang and recorded it in 1939. Written by teacher Abel Meeropol as a poem and published in 1937, it protested American racism, particularly the lynching of African Americans. Such lynchings had reached a peak in the South at the turn of the century, but continued there and in other regions of the United States. The great majority of victims were black. The song's lyrics are an extended metaphor linking a tree’s fruit with lynching victims. Meeropol set it to music and, with his wife and the singer Laura Duncan, performed it as a protest song in New York City venues in the late 1930s, including Madison Square Garden.
The song continues to be covered by numerous artists, including Nina Simone, UB40, Jeff Buckley, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Robert Wyatt and Dee Dee Bridgewater and has inspired novels, other poems, and other creative works. In 1978, Holiday's version of the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. It was also included in the list of Songs of the Century, by the Recording Industry of America and the National Endowment for the Arts. It was also dubbed "a declaration of war ... the beginning of the civil rights movement".
Lyrics Southern trees bearing strange fruit Blood on the leaves and blood at the roots Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees Pastoral scene of the gallant south Them big bulging eyes and the twisted mouth Scent of magnolia, clean 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 leaves to drop Here is a strange and bitter crop