Doc Shoe's Music Blog

“Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday

There’s a reason artists are always getting in trouble.  It’s an artist’s job to make you uncomfortable.  They can’t afford to be polite.

This is a song about lynchings.  It began as a poem written by a Jewish-American schoolteacher in the Bronx.  It was performed by Billie Holiday, a woman who’d seen more hell than I care to summarize here.  At a time when no politician had the balls to even acknowledge the problem, this woman got onstage and sang about it.

She first recorded “Strange Fruit” in 1939.  It sold a million copies.  She brought the problem of racial oppression and violence to your turntable, and made it that much harder to ignore.  This was years before the Civil Rights movement started building steam.  She feared violent retaliation every time she performed this song.  She did it anyway. 

It’s an election year, and I’m already tired of being told to idolize pundits and politicians.  It’s their job to reassure you and sing you to sleep.  Me, I’d rather idolize someone who woke people up.