“Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday
This song was supposed to be Billie Holiday’s best-selling single, but radio stations refused to play it and promoters told her not to sing it. “Strange Fruit” was based on a poem condemning racism, particularly lynching, which was a lingering tragedy in the Deep South at the time the song was released in 1939. It’s difficult to fathom anyone criticizing a song that condemns lynching, but it occurred right here in the ‘country of the free.’ The mournful ballad, deemed excessively explicit and brutal, was outlawed in South Africa during apartheid and placed Billie Holiday on the F.B.I.’s “watch list.” Holiday’s record label, Columbia Records, declined to record her protest. Fortunately, her contract allowed the admired singer to collaborate with another, smaller left-leaning label, Commodore Records, to record it. Time magazine eventually selected “Strange Fruit” the “song of the century,” but not until 1999.
Strange Fruit By Billie Holiday
