Billie Holiday Strange Fruit Meaning

The poem, “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe, has a dark and eerie tone. This poem is so sullen and creepy because the narrator’s wife, Annabel Lee, was killed by the heinous, chilling winds that were dispatched by the angels. Her husband, who became a widower, wrote the poem beside Annabel Lee, who was dead in her tomb. This has a very dark and glum toon, which causes the reader to jump into a somber mood. The text states in a dreadful and shocking tone “that the wind came out of the cloud by night/chilling and killing my Annabel Lee” (Poe 25-26). The poem “i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)” by E E Cummings, is a very powerful poem about love. It is mainly about a man who knows that his life is complete because he has his love by his side. Cummings uses passionate and warm hearted words to make the reader incorporate and feel an emotional mood towards the poem. In a spiritual and loving tone it states that “i want, no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)” (Cummings 6-7). Each one of the poems are unique in their own way, but both have completely divergent feelings and tones to them. “Annabel Lee” has a dark, gloomy, and cold tone that makes the reader feel a sense of loneliness. Poe sets a sorrowful and mournful

Strange Fruit is extremely valuable today and especially in the 1930’s. The 1930’s was a rough time for society. No one should have to live through the deaths of innocent humans but unfortunately that happened in the past and still happens today in different forms. Strange Fruit was the first controversial song that ever spoke out about the cruelty of the lynching of African Americans. It gained attention throughout the years of Holiday performing it, which gives it tremendous value. The sadness and disturbing imagery portrayed in the song, gave it a positive effect considering it gained support towards the Civil Rights Movement. The song sends out a clear message in an unusual way. Painting a disturbing picture into the listener’s mind through words makes the person perceive the message to be to end lynching. “Strange fruit hanging from the poplar tree” (line 4). The strange fruit is a black person being hanged from the tree. That is a deep message that was made to get into everyone’s head to push for a change in the unfair society.

Mead is walking alone. Both, the short story and poem present the mood of the setting as very lonely. Along with the setting, both authors use the character’s to exhibit similar moods.

With every aspect of our lives we are making a point, arguing a belief, or refuting some other aspect of our existence. Aesthetic pieces, most avidly poems and songs, argue a message both in the lyrics and in the meaning posed between the lines. “American Pie,” in a multitude of ways, argues that American lives and memories are closely intertwined with the music of the time period. Not only does “American Pie” argue a message it also pulls many generations together. Today, thirty years after the initial release, “American Pie” still has an effect in our music and continues to be popular with all age groups. Don McLean accomplishes this task through using the context of the time period, placement of words, the words

“The Flowers” by Alice Walker is a very well written yet short and sweet story that paints a very vivid picture of main problem the times. It expresses the reality of the lynching of the African American community in a way that is very easy to understand. Alice Walker uses vibrant details to bring to light the severity of the problem and what people of that time period went through. The story also showcases a deeper meaning that does not necessarily revolve around lynchings but represents the loss of childhood innocence. “The Flowers” explains the reality of racism and lynchings of the time while also providing an inner lying message about one’s coming of age and loss of innocence.

The 1930’s was a decade of extremely hard times, following the stock market crash and an extreme depression. In spite of the tremendous hardships in America during this decade, it also became a time of great music that is still remembered today. Jazz music was highly popular in this time, and Billie Holiday was a famous jazz performer. She stood out from many other musicians because of her intense and passionate performances. Jazz arose from “unacceptable” segments of society, but quickly grew like wildfire. We often think of the 1930’s as the decade that jazz became civilized, and famous throughout popular culture through the work of pioneering artists like Billie Holiday. People did not own televisions or cable, so radio was their main source of entertainment, and music during this decade was both up beat and a source of relaxation. “Strange Fruit” defied musical category because it was considered too artsy to be folk, and too explicitly political to fit into jazz. This is why “Strange Fruit” became such a powerful phenomenon. Many other artists later took on this song, changing the genre but still portraying the same message. Nina Simone dramatized “Strange Fruit” in the context of the Civil Rights Movement. More important artists like Jeff Buckley, Rene Marie, Labor Camp Orchestra, and many others made their own rendition on the song, still leaving all of their audiences moved by the powerful imagery of the lyrics.

It is uncommon for an American singer to decry Billie Holiday’s art of music considering that many cite the influence of her career not only on jazz but also on other American music. The distinctive phrasing,

and Willie Nelson. The song is an old southern anthem of the basic tale and fate of growing up. The song goes on to

One famous jazz artist, Billie Holiday’s, is known for a famous work of jazz called “Strange Fruit.” This piece of art was a haunting protest against racism. Directly from the song, Billie sings “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 (Holiday “strange fruit”). The words in this quote, “Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,” show that lynching was done. The blood on the leaves and at the root portrays the gruesomeness of hanging.

In the music video/song “Strange Fruit”, the phrase strange fruit doesn’t really refer to a fruit that is strange. It actually refers to people being lynched and hanging from trees. More specifically, the term strange fruit applies to the lynching of African Americans. This song was performed by Billie Holiday in 1939 at the Cafe Society in New York. The music video was actually a recorded performance from 1959. The song was written and performed because the purpose of was to raise awareness and fight against African American lynching because during that time, African Americans were being discriminated and abused. Billie Holiday in the music video/song “Strange Fruit” displays logos through context and imagery, pathos through her sorrowful tone and facial expressions, and lastly, ethos because she won many awards during her career in singing, and Strange Fruit is one of them.

In Lady Day At Emerson’s Bar And Grill we see Billie Holiday at one of her lowest points in her career. She can hardly stand up and hold it together. She breaks down many times and sometimes goes on rambling incoherently. In Lady Sings The Blues we get to imagine Billie at her absolute best. We hear about many of her great and beautiful performances. During these performances hundreds of people attend, while in Lady Day At Emerson’s Bar And Grill Billie only performs for about 7 people in a not so popular place in

The south was a place full of poplar trees and sweet, fragrant magnolias. In contrast, as illustrated in “Strange Fruit” the south was also the place the most hateful crimes against African Americans in our counties history were taken place. Meeropol uses metaphors to convey images of these gruesome acts of racism. Meeropol repeats the words “crop” and “strange fruit” which both refer to African American people and emphasize the metaphor for the lynching of African Americans being talked about the poem. These people were simply treated like bad crops, left outside for the birds to eat.

It was reported that African-American men were lynched to death in Mississippi on a weekly basis. Since 1874, the Jim Crow laws had been established and stayed in effect until 1975. This legalizes the separation of races in the south of America and condemned coloured Americans to a second-class citizenship (Tischauser, 2012). These conditions became the source of many blues numbers which often wail the gruesome experiences of victims of systemic racism such as ‘Strange Fruit’ by Billie Holiday, as it was a common reaction to perform songs of protest against racial injustice in juke joints. Artists are often cryptic about their messages to cloak topics that seemed unsafe to explore.

Over the course of nearly 260 years of social and political happenings and Fourth of July celebrations, the easily malleable ditty has spawned a vast multitude of improvised verses, which both feed and are testimony to its lasting appeal as a veritable ‘song of the people’. However, this does create some problems. Yankee Doodle’s celebrated melody is one of the very few things about the song that have remained constant throughout its history. With a long history of continual adaptation and evolution, its lyrical origins are more difficult to pinpoint. It is unsurprising that there is little iron-clad evidence for each aspect of a traditional song whose composition was born of on-the-go, impromptu improvisation. Even the most commonly accepted

The poem’s words echo through your mind, revealing a haunting display. Eleanora Fagan, professionally known as Billie Holiday, performed Strange fruit. She sang the poem not in a melody, but in a screeching tone creating an alarming show. The timbre of her voice’s pitch was intense. In other words, the way Billie Holiday sang Strange Fruit in a serious voice, confirms that the poem is not to joke about because it is based on a true story. It is important to realize, that the poem relates to history because it demonstrates how demented racism dominated in the