"Strange Fruit" - 80 anos da “canção do século”

A interpretação de Holiday de Strange Fruit combinava raiva e tristeza (ALAMY)

Strange Fruit

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.

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.

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.

“Eu escrevi Strange Fruit porque odeio os linchamentos, odeio injustiça e odeio as pessoas que os perpetuam.”

Abel Meeropol*

 Linchamiento de Thomas Shipp y Abram Smith. Marion Indiana, 1930. Foto: Lawrence Beitler . 

(“Strange Fruit”: el poderde la música)

 

*Abel Meeropol - professor judeu que sob o pseudônimo Lewis Allen escreveu “Strange Fruit”, em resposta aos linchamentos de negros em Estados do sul dos Estados Unidos.