NightFire - Strange Fruit (Nina Simone Cover)
"Strange Fruit" was written in 1937 as a poem by Abel Meeropo, a Jewish civil rights activist. It protested American racism, particularly the lynching of black Americans. Billie Holiday recorded it as a song in 1939.
Southern trees bearing strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the roots
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees
Pastoral scene of the gallant south
Them big bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolia, clean and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the leaves to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop