"STRANGE FRUIT"- Eclectic Analysis

THE FOLLOWING IS A MULTI-FACETED LOOK AT BILLIE HOLIDAY'S "STRANGE FRUIT." I TAKE A CLOSER LOOK AT THE SCORE, LYRICS, THE HISTORICAL & CULTURAL CONTEXT IN WHICH THE SONG WAS RECORDED IN, THE EMOTIONS THE SONG CAPTURES, AND MORE...

The recording could be heard here.

Click on Billie Holiday’s 1939 Single Version.

Open Listening
Improvised; Crying; Eerie; Bitter; Melancholy
Dark; Emptiness; Haunting; Angry; Vocals; Dramatic
- Horn in the beginning sounds like a variation of long and short cries
- Text and music match: words like “swinging” sound like they’re swinging and words like “pluck” sound sort and plucked!
- In the beginning, the cymbals sound like wind blowing (perhaps across the empty field)
- Vocals don’t start on the downbeat
- Vocals are arresting; seems like the vocals are at the front and the music is somewhere in the background.
- Blood on the trees and blood at the roots? What an analogy! She’s using fruit to depict hanged bodies! And she’s calling it “strange”—what a euphemism!
- Perhaps the tree’s roots contain blood because black slaves must have died to help grow the fields; or perhaps the lyrics are implying that Southern racism has deep roots—engrained in the culture and mindset of the people—and is not merely on the “leaves.”
- There’s something about that last note, when Holiday sings “crop.”

Historical Background
Before recording “Strange Fruit,” Billie Holiday first performed the song at Café Society, a New York City nightclub—located right here in Greenwich Village. The club was one of the only truly integrated venues in New York City at the time, and was known to be a place for the progressive-minded. When Holiday performed the song at Café Society, a disturbed silence followed. In her autobiography Lady Sings the Blues, Holiday recalls, “There wasn’t even a platter of applause when I finished...then a lone person began to clap nervously. Then suddenly everybody was clapping” (Margolick 16). While the elite audience was certainly aware of the lynching that was occurring in the South, Holiday’s performance of “Strange Fruit” made the grave situation ever so tangible. Additionally, the performance introduced a fairly new category of music—the protest song (17).

In her autobiography Lady Sings the Blues, Holiday claimed to have written “Strange Fruit” herself. In a performance of the song for BBC TV in 1958, Holiday introduced the piece as “a tune written especially for me” (Katz). In fact, Holiday neither wrote the anti-lynching song nor had the song written specifically for her. Instead, a Jewish American schoolteacher from the Bronx wrote the song “Strange Fruit.” Abel Meeropol, under the pseudonym Lewis Allan, originally wrote the piece as a poem, inspired from seeing a photograph of the lynching of two black men--Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith. Meeropol, an English teacher in the 1930s and an active member of the Teachers’ Union, published the poem—then titled “Bitter Fruit”—in New York Teacher, a Teachers’ Union publication. After writing the music to the lyrics, Meeropol had the song performed at Cafe Society, at a Cabaret Night hosted by the Teachers’ Union’s Theatre Arts Committee. Story goes that the founder of Cafe Society, Barney Josephson, arranged for Meeropol, Holiday, and himself to meet (Katz). The song was played for Holiday and it was decided that Holiday would record it. Her record label, Columbia, refused to record it—not thinking that it would be a commercial success and not wanting to antagonize Southern customers (Margolick 63). This led Holiday to record the song with Commodore Records in 1939. The release spurred much controversy—radio stations refused to play it and publishers refused to touch it. However, “Strange Fruit” became one of Holiday’s most famous songs, reaching the number sixteen spot on the Billboard charts by July 1939 (Kolodzey).

Syntax

For a copy of the score (for educational purposes only) click here.

- The piece is in the key of B flat minor.
- The piece is thoroughly composed.
- In regards to form, there is no repeating verse or chorus.
- In measure 5, the F7 is major. Usually the fifth of a minor scale is a minor chord. The fact that there is a note that is out of the key creates a stronger sense of leading.
- At measure 15 (“gallant south”), the bass line descends chromatically.
- The use of numerous seventh chords makes us feel like we’re constantly being led somewhere (seven is always wanting to go to the tonic.) Some examples that are particularly effective are: measure 17 (“twisted mouth”) and measure 21 (“burning flesh.”)
- At measure 22, each note in the phrase “here is a fruit” remains on the same C note. Use of a triplet should also be noted.
- From measure 22 till 27, there seems to be a sequence that’s slightly “jazzed” up rhythmically.
- In measure 27 (“tree to drop”), the notes descend chromatically.
- At measure 27 (“tree”), there is a diminished chord.
- At measure 29 (“strange”), there is a one chord in first inversion.
- In the last measure—31—we’re about to resolve to the tonic, but there is a G stuck in there, which prevents us from fully resolving.

Sound in Time (Phenomenological)
For this section, only sound—vocals and instruments—will be focused on. All syntactical analysis will be suspended, as will any reference the music or lyrics bring to mind. “Strange Fruit” lasts for 3 minutes and 13 seconds, beginning with over one minute of an instrumental introduction. The following is a temporal breakdown and description of the sounds on the track:

0:00 to 0:07- The horn’s first cry—slow and controlled. Meanwhile, the sound of cymbals rings in the background—almost sounding like water gently flowing down.
0:08 to 0:13- The horn’s second cry—more staccato and loose.
0:14 to 0:27- The horn’s third cry—longer and then a rest.
0:28 to 1:09- Piano (with bass underneath) begins playing a soft, smooth, almost inviting tune. At one second, the sounds will invite you in, and the next second you’ll be brought down.
1:10 to 1:38- Vocals begin (piano, bass, and horns underneath.) The voice is subtle and restrained and the instrumental sound is dark and dreary. The voice is annunciating words clearly and certain consonants ring louder through alliterations.
1:39 to 1:49- short instrumental section begins about first vocal section ends.
1:50 to 2:21- second vocal section begins. Again, the voice is subtle, yet slightly building. The backing music is gloomy and melancholy.
2:22 to 2:41- the voice becomes more dramatic and direct. Short phrases follows, each building upon the next, more emotional and upfront.
2:42: second of silence, all instruments drop out of the picture, and the voice comes in before the instruments return.
2:43 to 2:50: vocal improvises and descends painfully.
2:51 to 2:53: another slight moment of silence, voice begins before instruments come back.
2:54 to 3:10- vocals’ last line, dramatic, a sense of release, yet a tiny (and simultaneous) sense of lingering.
3:11 to 3:13- the cymbals are audible for a few seconds.

Referential Analysis (Text and Representational)
The text for the piece is as follows:

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

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

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

Without any sort of historical knowledge, the first line of “Strange Fruit,” may seem strange itself—stimulating questions as to what sort of fruit was being spoken of. Once “black body” is mentioned, it is clear that the fruits represent human beings hanged on trees. Throughout the song, there is use of innocent, calm, and pretty words to describe the South, paired with painful words to describe the hanged bodies. The juxtaposition of these words is powerful. Here is a breakdown of the second paragraph (bolded are the words in reference to the South and italicized are the words referring to the black body):

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

The way in which the words sit so closely together—the fact that these words are in the same paragraph—represent the duality of the South. While the Southern landscape can be flowering and fruitful, colorful and clean, the landscape also features death, savageness, and hateful murder. The irony of this passage is extremely powerful.

Musically, the piece refers to a cry that is bitter and angry—one that is uncontrollable, but must be controlled. The horns in the beginning of the song remind me of the sounds of the shofar, a horn—usually a ram’s horn—that is blown 100 times during the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah (the New Year.) The blowing of the shofar consists of four distinct blows—one that is a long and sustaining note (tekiah), a sighing sound of three short notes (shevarim), a very rapid series of short notes (teruah), and an extremely long single note (tekiah gedolah.) According to Jewish tradition, each blowing represents a different cry. Naturally, the beginning section with the three distinct horn phrases reminds of the crying sounds of the shofar.

The crying extends past the horn section. In fact, it sustains through the entire song. It seems to be more restrained and calm in the beginning of the sound, and becomes angrier and more severe as the song reaches its end. The backing music seems to be flat, generally quiet and withdrawn. Such a musical landscape seems to represent emptiness.

Virtual Feeling
Virtual feeling is present in every song; it is the actual feeling that was present in the making of the piece, transferred into a “virtual” song format. Each listener has the ability to interpret a piece of music in their own way—and essentially, create their own virtual feelings. To me, the song is debilitating and sucks out energy from me each time I listen to it with real focus, and especially each time I sing it aloud to myself. While the music and vocals are subdued and controlled for the majority of the song, the resulting emotions are overpowering. The imagery is provoking; one almost feels like they can smell the burning flesh. The vocals are haunting. And the instruments are simultaneously muted and inviting, yet dark and saddening.

What human emotions are exactly grounded in this song? Before I begin to ponder that, I must recognize that since I have no ability to actually understand what was going in the minds and hearts of both the songwriter and vocalist, I can only speculate about the “actual feeling” they placed in the composition and recording.

In the beginning, there seems to be an element of hesitance in the way the story is told. It almost feels as if the vocalist does not want to speak the words and therefore make the truth a reality. As the song progresses, inherent in the sound are feelings of disdain and disappointment—most prominently in spots such as “strange fruit hanging from poplar trees.” I can just imagine the vocalists’ brow lowered when singing the word “hanging.” The emotion builds and a true anger seems to appear once the sequence of short phrases begins, starting with “here is a fruit, for the crows to pluck.” It feels as if the vocalist is clutching onto the “fruit,” showing it to the audience aggressively, almost shoving it into their faces and saying, “here it is—you can’t deny it.” The lyrics become progressively more detailed and uglier. When the words “for the wind to suck” are sung, my breath is taken away and that’s when I feel weak and close to crying. The last phrase of this building paragraph is disturbingly pathetic—“for a tree to drop.” At this point, the body is not just hanging, but it has been burnt, attacked, disintegrated, and then eventually dropped into nothingness. After such terrible imagery, the vocalist returns to that puzzling word—“strange” to describe the situation before her. How incredibly ironic and euphemistic.

Onto-historical World
New York in 1939. Americans are still in the era of the Depression and have yet to enter World War II. “Strange Fruit” was recorded in April of 1939 and performed in New York’s Café Society earlier that year. All this precedes the official start of World War II, as it also precedes American awareness for what was really going on in Hitler’s Germany. At the same time, during the later half of this decade, many Northern Americans were involved in an anti-lynching movement, lead by the NAACP (Katz). There was a lot of action pushing for an anti-lynching bill, but each time it went to Congress, virtually all of the Southern senators rejected it (Katz).

It seems that by 1939, Americans were aware of the lynching occurring in the South, but that they would be seriously surprised to see it as a performance and to hear it as a song. It seems that “Strange Fruit” was the first black protest song aimed at a largely white audience (Margolick 55). Some say that Andy Razaf’s “Black and Blue”—released in 1929 and made popular by Louis Armstrong—was the first black protest song for a white audience. While “Black and Blue” inferred a resistance towards racism, “Strange Fruit” seems to really be the first protest song to so directly confront America’s dark secret.

Having all this in mind, I try to imagine what it would be like sitting in that audience, listening to such a horrifying piece of music. Here’s a video of Billie Holiday performing the song in the 50s. Though the performance occurs a decade or so after the song’s initial release—and therefore is expressed in a different onto-historical context—it is still helpful to get a visual representation of the song in order to help us imagine what it would be like sitting in that audience, hearing the shocking song for the first time.

I would imagine that the audience sitting at Café Society, hearing Billie Holiday’s version of “Strange Fruit” for the first time, would be chilled. They would be shocked to hear Holiday sing a song that was politically-charged (since up to that point, Holiday had been singing about love and romance), stunned to hear such piercing music, and taken aback by the courage Holiday had to sing such a song in public. While Café Society was known to attract a high caliber of progressively-minded people, I still think they would be genuinely surprised to hear a black person—and especially a black woman—stand up against such injustice. David Margolick, author of Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday, Cafe Society, and an Early Cry for Civil Rights, points at an example depicting the cultural context during the release of “Strange Fruit”—the release of the 1939 movie Gone With the Wind, a film that was deeply condescending in portraying the black character (Margolick 6). Holiday’s performance of “Strange Fruit” did not only wake up Northerners to the injustice occurring in the South, but it also challenged racial roles.

Second Open Listening
After such thorough analysis, listening to “Strange Fruit” is certainly a different experience. Now, I hear the recording and I think about the varied cries that begin the song and how that reminds me of the shofar blowing. I hear Holiday timidly beginning the piece and then progressively getting more emotional, bitterer, and angrier. Now, each moment the music catches my breath, I understand that the piece was composed with numerous seventh chords to make it feel as if the music is always leading and always wanting to resolve. Additionally, I now understand why I had always felt hanging at the end of the song, when Holiday sung the word “crop”—because the song did not fully resolve.
What I am realizing from my second open listening is that the historical and cultural analysis really had an impact on me and is a lot of what I hear now when I listen to the song. The image that I see in my mind when listening to the song is the image of the lynched men—their heads cocked to the side, their bodies inert—the image that inspired Meeropol to produce the song.

Performance Guide
I think it would firstly be beneficial for a performer to have a deep understanding of the historical and cultural context of “Strange Fruit.” Such a song carries extreme emotional weight and a performer must be emotionally invested when performing the song. As far as technicality, a performer should pay attention to dynamics—making sure to begin singing softly and subtly and ending strongly. A vocalist must also make sure to focus on the several points in the melody when notes are made natural.

The following people have performed “Strange Fruit”: Cassandra Wilson, Tori Amos, Ella Fitzgerald, Diana Ross, Nina Simone, Sting, just to name a few.

Meta-critique
The strength of the eclectic method is that each approach—syntactical, historical, phenomenological, referential, virtual feeling, and onto-historical—is valuable and enhances the listening experience. I was surprised to see that even though I had listened to the same song dozens and dozens of times by the end of this assignment, each time I focused on a new approach, I discovered something new! The eclectic method forces the listener to focus—to suspend other disciplines and only concentrate on one angle. Sometimes it’s difficult. For example, when describing sound-in-time, it was always tempting to include something referential. However, being forced to separate those parts of the brain was very useful.

Also, the order in which the eclectic method is formulated was very beneficial to me. I especially thought that having the virtual feeling section after the referential analysis—especially the textual—made it easier to really feel and connect with the piece. I also think the sound-in-time section really enabled the syntactical findings to shine.

Having said all that, I am not sure how much the eclectic method creates the space for reuniting all the separate disciplines. The second open listening didn’t bring everything together so fluidly for me. Perhaps, it was because I was too drained from listening to the piece. Additionally, I feel that the historical analysis could sometimes create a block in understanding and appreciating the work. Reading things about Billie Holiday’s alleged lack of intelligence interfered with my interpretation; apparently Barney Josephson—the man who brought Meeropol and Holiday together—expressed that he felt that Holiday didn’t understand what the song meant when he first showed it to her (Margolick 44).

All in all, this experience of putting together an eclectic method of “Strange Fruit” was fascinating. I have never delved so deeply into a study of a singular song. The method allowed me to completely involve myself in a musical piece and also revealed to me the joy and satisfaction of searching for depth within music.



**Works Cited
Margolick, David. Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday, Cafe Society, and an Early Cry for Civil Rights. Running Press: Philadelphia. 2000. (is this correct form?)
Strange Fruit. Dir. Joel Katz. Videocassette. California Newsreel, 2002.