And audiences have continued to applaud this disturbing ballad, unique in Holiday's oeuvre and in the American popular-song repertoire, as it has left its mark on generations of writers, musicians, and listeners, both black and white. The applause grew louder and less tentative as 'Strange Fruit' became a nightly ritual for Holiday, then one of her signature songs, at least where it could be safely performed.

'Then a lone person began to clap nervously. 'There wasn't even a patter of applause when I finished,' she later said. But Holiday was to recall that even there she was afraid to sing this new song, and regretted it, at least momentarily, when she first did. Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck, For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck, For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop, Here is a strange and bitter crop.Īs Billie Holiday later told the story, a single gesture by a patron at New York's Cafe Society, in Greenwich Village, changed the history of American music in early 1939, the night when she first sang 'Strange Fruit.'Ĭafe Society was New York's only truly integrated nightclub outside Harlem, a place catering to progressive types with open minds. Pastoral scene of the gallant South, The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth, Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh, And the sudden smell of burning flesh! Southern trees bear a strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black body swinging in the Southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Strange Fruit by David Margolick