Songwriting: Critical Listening and Composition-Billie Holiday

"Strange Fruit" was originally a poem written by teacher Abel Meeropol as a poem and was published in 1937 protesting the racism that was going on in America at the time particular the lynching that was very common in the southern parts (though they did occur in other parts of the country) of America.

The songs effect on raising awareness of the disgusting acts that were being committed was huge. It was met with a lot of resistance at first during the early performances in which Billie Holiday was heckled and abused verbally in clubs where she performed. The song was very pivotal, a way of moving the tragedy of lynching out of the black press and into the white consciousness.

Barney Josephson, the founder of Cafe Society in Greenwich Village, New York's first integrated nightclub, heard the song and introduced it to Billie Holiday which would later go on to be her biggest song. When she began to perform the song it would only be performed at the end of the set, the waiters would stop all service in advance; the room would be in darkness except for a spotlight on Holiday's face.

Performance: Billie Holidays performance of this song was very powerful and demanded the attention of every member of the audience because of the way she performed the song. The lights would go out revealing just her face in a darkened room drawing every ones eyes to her. She would begin to perform the song with the piano accompanying her.

This song was purposely left as the last song of her set so when she finished it left audiences stunned and shocked at the lyrical content and performance they have just seen.

The Prosody:

Lyrics: The lyrical content of the song is incredibly gruesome, describing the site of a lynching in an incredibly poetic and gruesome way really captured the audiences attention. What also made the lyrical content that much more uncomfortable to listen to was to remember they were describing a very real scene. One line as an example is from the 2nd verse line 2; "The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth". Lines like this paint such a detailed picture for the audience. This particular line detailing what would happen to a body after being hung for a certain amount of time, with it's eyes bulging from its head and twisted mouth from hanging for so long.

My personal favourite lines of the song are "scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh. Then the sudden smell of burning flesh". These lines at first pain a picture of beautiful flowers growing in the summer and then straight after the next line is talking about smelling burning flesh. It's such a stark contrast to one another that I really appreciated these lines and I'm sure they captured the audience too. Music

Since "strange fruit" was originally a poem, the music that would be made to accompany Billie holiday's voice had to make up for the poem being so short so there would be a long piano intro (around 70 seconds). When She began to finally sing the song the piano would use trills during the line "For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck". This is as if the piano is recreating the rain through trills, then it suddenly stops to give the accompanying lyric more power.

Delivery and a Feel She sings each line very slowly and clearly, with clear emotional discomfort showing on her face. She makes sure that each line is slow so that the audience can digest every word they hear from the song. Back during a time where such inhumane things were happening to people Billie Holiday wanted everybody to know every brutal detail of what was happening to black people all over america, and her timed delivery was very important for this to happen.

She would also sing out of key and sometimes screech towards the end. Singing out of key only added to the unpleasant and gruesome setting of a lynching. When an instrument or vocal is out of key it is always unpleasant to hear, however in this situation this is exactly what was intended and fit perfectly. Overall emotional impact

People were left speechless after these performances. Most people if not all came to see a singer sing some nice songs and leave in a good mood, however they were not prepared to be hit with such a dramatic and gruesome image firmly scorched into their brain for the reasons listed above.

Billie Holiday sang with each word as if they had their own stories themselves, painting a picture of a gruesome scene of inhumane torture to innocent people. This left audiences either shocked and appalled or very angry, or both.

Billy Holiday delivered one of the most important songs in history, during a time of racial hatred where she easily could have ruined her career, but she stood up for the innocent people and brought forward an issue that had to be addressed with a harrowing performance that clearly drained her emotionally herself.