Posted by:
Nightingale
(
)
Date: January 18, 2021 02:16PM
D&D: I think it was you, long ago, who mentioned the song Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday. I hadn't heard of it before. It is the saddest, most haunting melody and Billie's rendition is heart-wrenching. I looked it up again the other day for a friend as we were speaking of the current situation in the US and the roots of some of the upheaval. She had never heard of the song. I found I couldn't read the words to her - cannot get used to them, too tragic, and she didn't want to know them anyway when I told her about the subject (which she guessed just by the song's title, in the context of our prior discussion). However, maybe we honour those affected more if we do delve into the guts of it all.
The story of the writer of the song, which first started out as a poem, is also fascinating.
https://www.npr.org/2012/09/05/158933012/the-strange-story-of-the-man-behind-strange-fruit"In 1999, Time magazine named "Strange Fruit" the "song of the century." [amazing!] The Library of Congress put it in the National Recording Registry. It's been recorded dozens of times. Herbie Hancock and Marcus Miller did an instrumental version, with Miller evoking the poem on his mournful bass clarinet.
"Miller says he was surprised to learn the song was written by a white Jewish guy from the Bronx. "Strange Fruit," he says, took extraordinary courage both for Meeropol to write and for Holiday to sing.
"The '60s hadn't happened yet," he says. "Things like that weren't talked about. They certainly weren't sung about."
Written by "a white Jewish guy from the Bronx" - funny and yes, unexpected. Meeropol was a teacher.
Another fascinating piece to this story: Meeropol and his wife adopted the two sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg after they were executed for treason. I don't know how the adoption came to pass. The boys grew up to become college professors and were involved in social issues.
Music isn't just about sound but also about human history. Fascinating.