It’s remarkable to think that a song as entrenched in the American psyche as Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” started life as an answer song. Woody Guthrie – This Land Is Your Land (1944) However, many times it’s heard, “Strange Fruit” still feels like a warning from a not-too-distant past. Commodore stepped in and released Holiday’s version, which went on to sell a million copies, spreading awareness of the unmentionable cruelty and suffering caused by racism. Holiday grasped the impact the song had and knew she had to record it, but when she approached Columbia, her record label, they feared repercussions and gave her permission to record it for another label. A rule was enforced that she’d only be able to perform it as the last song in her set, once the bar staff had called time and the room was darkened. But “Strange Fruit” became a show-stopper – quite literally. When Billie Holiday first began performing the song at Café Society, in 1939, she was afraid of retaliation. Juxtaposing idyllic, florid scenes of a Southern landscape with uncompromising descriptions of black bodies swaying from a tree in the Southern breeze, his words were blunt and had the desired effect of shocking and appalling listeners. Written as a poem by Abel Meeropol – a white, Jewish teacher and member of the American Communist Party – and published in 1937 before he set the lines to music, “Strange Fruit” exposes the sheer brutality of racism in the United States at the time by way of a stark, powerful description of a postcard Meeropol had seen depicting a lynching. While you’re reading, listen to our Protest Anthems playlist here.
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