Strange Fruit

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 the 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.

Abel Meeropol, 1936

The really famous version of this is sung by Billie Holiday and is electrifying.

Still I think this Robert Wyatt version is powerful and different so I have put it on here.

Most people know the story of the song, but for anyone who doesn’t, it was written by Abel Meeropol, a white Jewish high-school teacher from the Bronx, in response to his horror at the racist lynchings in America at that time and in particular after seeing a photograph of a lynching.