Power To The People
Now we’re continuing with the theme of songs we’re singing in our show on Sunday 18th November with a strong connection to the Civil Rights Movement. Here we tackle the difficult subject of racism. Two of our songs in particular explicitly confront the issues facing black people in the 1950s and 1960s. Here we have part 3 of ‘Meet the Songs’…
Stevie Wonder – Living For The City.
Social commentary song tackling systemic racism.
The song “Living for the City” tells a poignant story of a young black man from a poor background in Mississippi. Growing up was difficult and full of hardship but he had people who cared around him. The young man moved to New York. He was set up, caught with drugs and sent to jail for 10 years, shattering his dreams in an instant.
Written and composed by Stevie Wonder in 1973 the song featured on his Innervisions album and reached number 1 on the R&B chart. He played all the instruments and did all the vocals on the song himself. Through this song Wonder was able to express his hurt and anger about the way black people were treated and he won 2 Grammy Awards for it. He used everyday sounds like traffic, voices and sirens in one of the first soul songs ever to deal in so much detail with systemic racism.
Billie Holiday – Strange Fruit.
Protest song about African-American lynchings
Well, it’s hard to know where to start with this one. A song that was much deliberated over on whether to include in the show lineup. An incredibly sensitive subject that needs treating with kid gloves and very safe in the hands of our leader.
“Strange Fruit” the Poem
“Strange Fruit” was originally written in 1937 as a poem by teacher Abel Meeropol. The poem was published first as “Bitter Fruit” in protest of racism in America, specifically the horror of lynching African Americans. At the beginning of the 20th century lynchings in the south of the US were rife. The act of lynching involved a group of people killing someone for an offence they had been accused of but not convicted through a legal trial. The accused were typically hanged but also shot, burned alive, dragged behind cars and forced to jump off bridges. Of nearly 2,000 Americans murdered by lynching, around three quarters of them were black. The lyrics of the poem conjure a disturbing picture comparing the sight of hanging lynching victims with the fruit hanging from a tree.
“Strange Fruit” the Song
The poem’s author, Meerpol, set the words to music and performed it with his wife, black vocalist Laura Duncan, as a protest song. They performed in the late 1930s at many venues in New York, including Madison Square Garden.
“Strange Fruit” was famously performed by Billie Holiday at Café Society and recorded in 1939. She feared a backlash after singing it. But as it reminded her of her own father she sang it as a regular feature of her performances. There were strict rules surrounding performance of the song. Billie always closed her shows with it, waiters stopped serving, the room was in darkness apart from a spotlight on her and there was no encore allowed. She performed with her eyes closed, as if the song were a prayer. Billie struggled to get agreement to record it but eventually turned to a friend to do the honours and it went on to sell over a million copies. Billie became so strongly associated with the song for her powerful rendition she became connected to it forever.
Sing United is 100% all about music with a message, so shying away from this one wasn’t an option.
