Annie Lennox

Released: October 21, 2014

Songwriter: Abel Meeropol

Producer: Mike Stevens Annie Lennox

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
Pastoral scene of the gallant South
The bulgin' eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolias sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burnin' flesh
Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the tree to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop
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

Annie Lennox is an award-winning singer, songwriter and activist who has sold over 80 million records worldwide between her solo work and the duo Eurythmics. At seventeen, Lennox won a scholarship to London’s Royal Academy of Music to become a flutist, but dropped out after feeling that classical music was “far too competitive” and “didn’t fit my kind of personality”.

While working as a waitress at a health food restaurant in London, Lennox met Dave Stewart, with whom she formed the band Catch with singer-songwriter Peet Coombes. Catch released one single before adding two more members and changing their name to The Tourists. Under that name, the band scored five UK hits before Coombes' substance abuse broke the band apart.

Lennox and Stewart continued writing together – with Stewart moving from guitar to synthesizer and Lennox adopting an androgynous look – and formed Eurythmics. Within a few years, the duo was propelled into international stardom when “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)”, a single from their second album, became a top ten hit in nine countries.

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