Lady Day

I can’t understand the hurt and pain of the people in the black community. I’m an old white woman. I read about what is going on and what has gone on for so terribly long. I watch what is happening on television and I cry but I really can’t know what it would feel like to be black. The closest I can come is when I hear Billie Holiday sing ‘Strange Fruit.’ For that short time, I get closer to understanding that pain than at any other time. The depths of her emotions while she sings that song permeate my soul.

“I never had a chance to play with dolls like other kids. I started working when I was six years old.” Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday was born, Eleanora Fagan Gough, in Philadelphia on April 7, 1915. She was raised in Baltimore and New York surrounded by drugs, prostitution, and no real parenting. She learned to survive in those conditions. She developed into a very strong woman with one serious weakness. She would struggle with various addictions for her whole life.

She survived with the help of her talent, her inner strength and her determination.

She was involved throughout her life with men she loved who did her much more harm than good. Over and over, she was used, lied to, and left in worse shape than she was when they came into her life.

Her talent, inner strength and determination took her past those times of heartbreak.

In 1939 before a normal concert at Cafe Society, New York’s integrated night club, the cafe manager showed her a song that was written by a friend of his. He asked Billie to sing it. Because they knew it was going to upset many of the people in the audience and she might be in danger, they planned carefully for her safety.

She performed the concert everyone expected to approving applause. The audience waited for the encore, not expecting what happened next. She stepped out into the center of the stage. The hall lights went off and a spotlight shone down on her. The audience gasped.

For the first time, she sang ‘Strange Fruit.’

Southern trees bear a strange fruit

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root

Black bodies swingin’ in the Southern breeze

Strange fruit hangin’ from the poplar trees.

The whole room was filled with the power of her voice, the power of the music and the meaning of the song.

As soon as the song ended, she disappeared out the back.

It immediately became the song she was known for. It made her even more famous. It also made her infamous. A whole lot of the country wasn’t ready for a song. They were very comfortable not knowing.

Columbia was her record label. They refused to record it but they did allow her to go to Comodor Records and they recorded it.

There were threats. The worst came from Harry Anslinger. He was with the Federal Bureau of Narcotics in the Treasury Department. He came to her and told her that if she didn’t stop singing the song he would come after her for her drug use.

She could have done what he asked and saved herself a whole lot of trouble. She refused and was prosecuted more than once for her drug use.

If she had been less strong, the song might have faded away and been forgotten. That would have been such a terrible loss.

She performed for many more years and wrote and recorded many more powerful hits but none would surpass ‘Strange Fruit.”

Among the awards ‘Strange Fruit’ received was Time Magazine’s ‘Song of the Century.’

I can’t think of any other song that would even come close.

As I started writing this, I thought I knew everything I needed to about what I could learn from Billie Holiday. I was wrong. She had so much more to teach me.

I never thought about how many times in her life she had to deal with doing what she was born to do with so much of the world against her. She had to battle her own addictions, the disapproval of much of the country, the disappointment when those she thought she could rely on deserted her, and even the federal government. She fought against all of that to bring her talents to the world. So what is my excuse?

I realize now that all of her experiences flavor the way she sings ‘Strange Fruit.’ It’s part of the depth I hear when I hear her sing it. All of that pushes its way into my soul and gives me a brief glimpse at the black experience I will never truly be able to understand.

Thank you, Lady Day.