The trumpet plays before and after the first stanza. However, the song begins with a trumpet that goes through a scale with slurred notes. The accompanied music heard throughout the song most of the time is a simple piano. The “labor” required for Southern trees to bear lynched black bodies is a purposeful action committed by lynchers. These “strange fruit” do not grow in trees as trees do not yield human bodies. These forces are also seen brutalizing black bodies in the poem.Ĭrop: The final word of the song fully ties in the theme of labor connected with harvest. Rain / wind / sun: These are all needed for plants to bear fruit. Taking this into context, “Here is fruit for the crows to pluck” makes evident of the laws that brutalize black bodies. Both of these states had countless lynching during the time this poem was written.īurning flesh: Could be specifically referencing the lynching of Will Brown which accrued during the Omaha Race Riot of 1919.Ĭrows: Reference to the Jim Crow Laws which permeated Southern life at the time. Magnolias, sweet and fresh: Magnolias are a general symbol of the South but, specifically, it is the state flower and tree of Mississippi and the state flower of Louisiana.
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