Lady Day On My Mind
I was only a child when I first heard the voice of Billie Holiday coming over my great grandmother’s radio. She was washing dishes in the sink and singing along with the singer, eyes closed and emotion beaming off her every movement. When I pulled my attention away and really listened, it was like I was listening to a lonely angel. The smooth melody seemed to drip from the sapling echo in the kitchen. Cradling my face in a swaying lullaby. I was a child, so the lyrics did not impact me with much meaning. But her voice! I could almost see it moving in the air. Feeling the vibration from her voice, breath on my skin.
After the song ended, I asked my Nana who that was. She smiled, turned off the radio, dried her hands, and then sat me down at the kitchen table to give me the 4-1-1 on real Jazz and Blues music (my Nana didn’t always give a straight answer to all of my insessant questions). She simply explained to me how the music was the heart and soul of African Folk and European traditions. All wrapped in a generational sea of people from vibrant cultures of beauty. Billie Holiday was just one musician amongst countless that have been gifted to tell a much needed story; with a passion no other form of communication could convey. (She didn’t say it like that to me. But the message was the same). All I could think about was her voice. And her name was Billie? At that realization point, I wanted my name to be Billie.
When I asked what Billie was singing about, my Nana told me it was a story about how life can give and take. That it is like looking in a mirror when you are a child and then looking into the same mirror when you are all grown up. Remembering all the good and the bad that has happened to you from then and now. I stared at her in disbelief. Not knowing what that even meant. She just smiled and padded my cheek. I then asked her how the lady could sound so sad and at the same time make you sway to her voice. “Was she using magic?” My Nana then told me flat out that singing with that kind of emotion is a kind of magic. Then she got up and turned the radio back on to finish washing the dishes.
I wanted more. For about 20 minutes I just listened to the radio in hopes of hearing her voice again. But to no avail. Frustrated, I asked my Nana if she had any records by Billie that I could listen to. She didn’t, however, grandma did (her daughter). AND SHE LIVED NEXT DOOR!
Cut to 15 years later, a new record player, and every single record release by Billie Holiday that I could get my greedy little hands on. I was obsessed (like this is a surprise). As I matured through the years, the lyrics became more obvious. Their meanings perching ever closer to my heart as I slowly matured. There was however, one in particular, that sent my whole world into a spin. I had received a record in the mail from my cousin during his vacation trip to Canada. I was in my mid-teens at the time. He knew I loved Billie Holiday, and told me in an attached letter, that this particular press had a song that was banned in a lot of US states after it was recorded and performed. It was a 45 single that had one song on one side and one on the other. I listened to the first song, and nearly fell off of the edge of my bed.
Have you ever listened to the song, Strange Fruit? Well, I wasn’t a complete idiot at the time, and when I realized what Billie was singing about, it hit me like a freight train. HOW IN HADES HAVE I NEVER HEARD THIS SONG BEFORE?! One realization after another hit me. Boom, boom, boom, BOOM! This was a song about people that were lynched! This song was actually banned where I was living. This song was shining the light on what was going on in the very country that I was a citizen. It was recorded in 1939, before the civil rights movement that began in 1954! HOLY S#!+! I knew all about the white washing of history in public schools. But this, this was profound! My US history class was a joke, to say the least. And every book available to me at the local library wasn’t much better. (I already knew this specific nugget of information because I regularly smoked cigarettes and ‘shot-the-shit’ with my history teacher out back in the football field. *This was before smoking was banned in all schools). When the realization of what I had no clue about hit me, I started to get very angry. What else was I completely unaware of? What histories and truths were being kept from my attention?
Yes, it’s just a song. But think about it. Put 2 and 2 together. Billie sang a song written from a poem by Abel Meeropol. A Russian-Jewish Immigrant. This was 1939! You know, World War Two! Let that sink in for a second. Billie Holiday (Eleanora Fagan), an American black woman, singing a song that shines a light on the inhumanity and racism going on in the very country she is living. Singing the poetic words from a Jewish Immigrant about the racism he witnessed in the United States while Nazi Germany is making the world tremble in fear. This is a time in history when that kind of “in your face” expression could get you, your friends, and your family killed.
Think of the kind of courage it took to stand in front of a crowd of strangers and sing that song. Not to mention the fact on having the unrelenting fortitude and fearless determination to publicize this very expression to the masses during such a violently tumultuous time. How many “artists” can you count on your fingers that do that very thing in this day and age? (Do you know anything about the band, Pu$$¥ Riot? Or the French street artist called, Invader? How about Takeshi Miyakawa, or Spencer Tunick?)
Anyway…
Billie Holiday has always been my favorite musician above all others.
She always will be.
Music is just one avenue of human artistic expression that transcends what words alone can’t convey. Hearing a single melodic voice crying to the heavens, can carry with it a legion of voices from the past, present, and even the future. It can stir change and evolve perception in ways unimaginable. All one has to do is really listen.
What happens next is, a choice wanting to be made.
