Strange Fruit
Strange Fruit
Music has been very important part of people’s life since long time ago. Throughout the history, we could observe how people at those days used music as part of their lives. People became happy when they sing and listen to music. People were comforted by music when they were in deep sorrow. Furthermore, people sang music when they work, harvest, and worship god. We could see how our culture is closely interrelated with music. “Strange Fruit” is the music that was composed to reflect the society and culture of that time. “Strange Fruit” was composed during the time of segregation and the time when Ku Klux Klan was rampaging in the society. Black people were highly threatened by them and many of the black people were killed in horrible ways. So the composer wanted to record this song to protest against lynching of the black people in southern part of the United States.
The music “Strange Fruit” was created by Abel Meeropol. He is also known as Lewis Allen. He was a Jewish-American teacher, writer and song writer. He first wrote this piece as a poem. Later it was put together with tunes and became a song. He decided to write this poem when he first witnessed the scene of the lynching black people. He was so shock by the scene because the black man who was lynched in the middle of the huge crowd was such an innocent man. He couldn’t understand why the black people have to be lynched without any guilt. Also, he couldn’t understand the fact that white people felt shameless and guiltless about their terrible crimes and how can they claimed themselves as devoted Christians. Although this song was not much recognized by white people, it was quite sensational. It was the first time for men to use a piece of music to represent their feelings for the social reform. The lyric said “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.“ It is
Music has been very important part of people’s life since long time ago. Throughout the history, we could observe how people at those days used music as part of their lives. People became happy when they sing and listen to music. People were comforted by music when they were in deep sorrow. Furthermore, people sang music when they work, harvest, and worship god. We could see how our culture is closely interrelated with music. “Strange Fruit” is the music that was composed to reflect the society and culture of that time. “Strange Fruit” was composed during the time of segregation and the time when Ku Klux Klan was rampaging in the society. Black people were highly threatened by them and many of the black people were killed in horrible ways. So the composer wanted to record this song to protest against lynching of the black people in southern part of the United States.
The music “Strange Fruit” was created by Abel Meeropol. He is also known as Lewis Allen. He was a Jewish-American teacher, writer and song writer. He first wrote this piece as a poem. Later it was put together with tunes and became a song. He decided to write this poem when he first witnessed the scene of the lynching black people. He was so shock by the scene because the black man who was lynched in the middle of the huge crowd was such an innocent man. He couldn’t understand why the black people have to be lynched without any guilt. Also, he couldn’t understand the fact that white people felt shameless and guiltless about their terrible crimes and how can they claimed themselves as devoted Christians. Although this song was not much recognized by white people, it was quite sensational. It was the first time for men to use a piece of music to represent their feelings for the social reform. The lyric said “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.“ It is