COMBO Editor: These songs are stirring, thought provoking, and deal with the world’s treatment of people of color through the Black experience. All are protest songs against the way Black people are treated – not only for the last 1,000 years but during the present. Everyone, not only songwriters, should know these songs – not just know the names but the lessons each one teaches. I’ve included “Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday here as an example of what the article tells. [This is a slide show but it is important to read the description, and the lyrics, of each one to understand the deeper meaning of the song.]
African-Americans have made incalculable contributions to music. In the words of Quincy Jones, “I only hope that one day, America will recognize what the rest of the world already has known, that our indigenous music—gospel, blues, jazz, and R&B—is the heart and soul of all popular music; and that we cannot afford to let this legacy slip into obscurity, I’m telling you.” To the styles of music he names, one could add soul, funk, disco, house, hip-hop, rock and roll, and many others. The history of Black people is embedded in their music. As comedian Roy Wood Jr. put it, “You wanna know what Black folks feelin’? Just listen to their music. Our music [will] tell you everything that’s going on in the Black psyche.” Click on the next slide to begin your journey through Black music and history.
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“Strange Fruit” – Billie Holiday (1939)
First written as a poem by a Jewish teacher and songwriter from the Bronx called Abel Meeropol, “Strange Fruit” was popularized by Billie Holiday in 1939. Here are some of the song’s haunting lyrics: “Southern trees bear 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.” The song is a protest against lynching, a practice in which a person is executed by a mob without a legal trial. Lynchings were carried out by white Americans to terrorize and control Black people. Billie Holiday sang “Strange Fruit” live for the next 20 years until her death at the age of 44.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/news/20-essential-songs-that-journey-through-black-experience/
Photo: Billie Holiday album