You are right, LittleBriddie. "Seven trees" has absolutely no relevance to this song. It's about lynching in the South, hence, Southern trees i/o Northern trees. Sad thing is, there are a couple of deluded people who posted this same mistake on the internet, just check out the following lyric sites:
Nina Simone did have her own take on it, though. Such as saying "Them big bulging eyes" i/o "The bulging eyes". But the two that interest me are "Clean and fresh" i/o "Sweet and Fresh" and "For the leaves to drop" i/o "For the trees to drop".
I don't like clean as much as sweet, as sweet has much more of a double-sided meaning. There's a good sweet of fresh flowers but then there's the sickening sweetness of rotting fruit. But I do like Nina's choice of leaves i/o trees. I got the shivers from hearing her singing "leeeaves" and holding it, as I immediately thought of the bodies being dropped to the ground.
You are right, LittleBriddie. "Seven trees" has absolutely no relevance to this song. It's about lynching in the South, hence, Southern trees i/o Northern trees. Sad thing is, there are a couple of deluded people who posted this same mistake on the internet, just check out the following lyric sites:
http://boscarol.com/nina/html/where/strangefruit.html http://www.lyricsfreak.com/n/nina+simone/strange+fruit_20100706.html http://www.goldlyrics.com/song_lyrics/nina_simone/pastel_blues/strange_fruit/
Nina Simone did have her own take on it, though. Such as saying "Them big bulging eyes" i/o "The bulging eyes". But the two that interest me are "Clean and fresh" i/o "Sweet and Fresh" and "For the leaves to drop" i/o "For the trees to drop".
I don't like clean as much as sweet, as sweet has much more of a double-sided meaning. There's a good sweet of fresh flowers but then there's the sickening sweetness of rotting fruit. But I do like Nina's choice of leaves i/o trees. I got the shivers from hearing her singing "leeeaves" and holding it, as I immediately thought of the bodies being dropped to the ground.