Cassandra Wilson came out with a version of this chilling song on her CD "New Moon Daughter" (Blue Note) in 1995.

Wilson was accompanied by Chris Whitley on "resophonic" guitar, Lonnie Plaxico on bass and Graham Haynes on cornet.

I have heard numberless versions of Holiday singing this song as it was her signature piece (even more so than "God Bless The Child"). Wilson's smokey voice, the bass riffs, the guitar, and coronet and work together to give a convincing new interpretation.

Um, she also does "Last Train to Clarkesville" by Boyce and Hart, made famous by The Monkees. It works. It really does.

Composed by Abel Meeropol (aka: Lewis Allan), a Bronx school teacher, writer, and political radical. He would later adopt the children of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg after their execution in the 1950's for alleged spy activities for the Russians.

The eerie melody and graphic lyrics about the horribly common practice of lynching Blacks in the South, served a a wakeup call for the rest of the nation. It also marked the first time that Holiday used her music and appeal to take a stand for Civil Rights.

It was first performed in 1939 at The Cafe Society, a trendy and upscale jazz club. Holiday would typically perform the song at the end of her set and in short time it became her signature piece--so much so that many people believe that she penned it (a claim she never refuted, believing the song belonged to her on a spiritual level.)

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

A song written and composed by Abel Meeropol and most famously performed by Billie Holiday.

Meeropol was a New York City teacher and poet who'd written the poem after seeing a photograph by Lawrence Beitler of the lynchings of two black men, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, in Marion, Indiana. He published the poem in a union magazine called "The New York Teacher" in 1937 under the pseudonym Lewis Allan. After setting the poem to music, Meeropol, his wife, and Laura Duncan, a black singer, performed it at Madison Square Garden.

Billie Holiday learned of the song from Barney Josephson, the owner of New York's first integrated nightclub, the Cafe Society; she performed it there for the first time in 1939. It became a popular part of her live performances, usually saved for her last song of the night, and Holiday asked her label, Columbia, about recording the song. Worried about a backlash in the South, Columbia passed on it, but gave her a single-session release from her contract so she could record it with Commodore, a jazz label.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

"Strange Fruit" was Holiday's biggest selling record, and it soon became known as her signature song. It was quickly adopted by the anti-lynching movement, and its popularity helped win many listeners over. In time, it became one of the anthems of the civil rights movement in the '50s and '60s.

It meant a lot to Holiday, too. She said it reminded her of her father (he wasn't lynched, but died after being turned away by white hospitals), which was one reason she stuck with it for so many years. And Bobby Tucker, her accompanist, said that, even after years of performing the song, she always broke down crying after singing it.

The song is generally classified as blues or jazz, but it seems to transcend both, especially as performed by Holiday. It seems like a fusion of jazz, the dissonant classical music of the early 20th century, and pure horror. Holiday had an unbelievably beautiful and melodic voice, but in this song, her voice embodies revulsion and ugliness. I'm not saying she sings the song poorly or out-of-tune, because the notes are perfect, and the musicianship is perfect -- but Holiday lets the horrors described in the lyrics come right out in the open. It's a two-and-a-half-minute epic of loathing and dread and fear. It's no wonder it became an anthem against lynching, and with its perfect musical skill and artistry, it's no wonder that it became one of Holiday's best-known songs.

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 trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

Watch the video.

Research:
Spartacus Educational
Wikipedia
Independent Lens