"Strange Fruit" is a song performed most famously by Billie Holiday, who released her first recording of it in 1939, the year she first sang it. Written by the teacher Abel Meeropol as a poem, it exposed American racism, particularly the lynching of African Americans. Such lynchings had occurred chiefly in the South but also in all other regions of the United States. The writer, Abel, set it to music and with his wife and the singer Laura Duncan, performed it as a protest song in New York venues, including Madison Square Garden.
The song has been covered by artists, as well as inspiring 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.
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Famous quotes containing the words strange and/or fruit:
“The radical changes in society from the small, well-considered hundreds to the countless thousands have of course destroyed the neighborly character of the strange conglomerate. It is more ornamental and much more luxurious now than then.”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)
“Then, Celia, let us reap our joys
Ere Time such goodly fruit destroys.”
—Thomas Carew (1589–1639)