THE 1000 BEST SONGS IN THE WORLD EVER

624-Billie Holiday-Strange Fruit.

1939-Has never charted in the UK. There was no UK chart until 1952.

Best Bit-At 1.06.’ The Lady Sings the Blues.

‘Billie Holiday was born Eleanora Fagan on April 7th, 1915, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, she died in 1959 at the age of 44, after a long battle with drugs, and alcohol. Billie Holiday had a turbulent upbringing, at the age of 11 she found a job running errands in a brothel, and at the age of 13 she became a victim of sexual trafficking.Holiday’s father Clarence (1898-1937) became her father at the age of 16, but didn’t stick around, and moved to Baltimore, to pursue a career in music. He became a well known musician, and when choosing her stage name, she kept his surname ‘Holiday.’ She chose the name ‘Billie’ in tribute to the actress Billie Dove (1903-1997.)

‘Strange Fruit’ was originally written as a poem in 1937 by a white, Jewish songwriter,school teacher, and union activist called Abel Meeropol (1903-1986.) Meeropol had been outraged after seeing a photograph of a horrific lynching in a civil rights magazine. The photo was a shot of two black men hanging from a tree, after they had been lynched in Marion, Indiana, United States, the two men are the ‘Strange Fruit.’

In 1939 while a performer at the first integrated venue in New York, the ‘Cafe Society Nightclub,’the song was brought to the attention of Billie Holiday.It was a very brave decision to record and perform the song, as it would be bound to cause controversy, putting Holiday’s own personal safety at risk, as well as potentially damaging her career as a black performer.

‘Strange Fruit’ became Holiday’s signature tune, and was the song she would always finish on for the rest of her career. In 1999 ‘Time’ magazine voted it the ‘Song of the Century,’ When the song had first come out in 1939, the same magazine had denounced it as ‘A piece of musical propaganda.’

There are some notable cover versions of ‘Strange Fruit,’ notably from Nina Simone, and the Reggae band UB40, who recorded the song as a bonus track for their debut Album ‘Signing Off,’ in 1980. Diana Ross also recorded the song for her performance in the film about Billie Holiday,’Lady Sings the Blues,’ from 1972.

‘Southern trees bear a strange fruit, blood on the leaves, and blood at the root. Black bodies swingin’ in the Southern breeze, strange fruit hangin’ from the poplar trees.’