Yesterday, I was craving sweet and sour stir fry vegetarian style (we will discuss my change to a vegetarian lifestyle in another post) and some banana pudding. Since, I had was missing
I kid you not I was not only horrified, I was downright nervous. I turn to my daughter, "Oh my goodness, they are playing lynching music. What kind of song is this? Who is this?" My daughter said she never heard the song before and did not know who it was.
Look, I know that Billie Holiday beautifully sang about the "Strange Fruit" she saw hanging from the trees while traveling through the South. That song was appropriate for the time. It is appropriate now. It is history. Holiday was sharing the story of those who have lost their lives because of racism and oppression. It is a soulful song. A song of pain. This song, "Hanging Tree," that I was listening to had a dance beat. Who dances to people being hung? It took me 20 minutes to focus on shopping and to stop wondering about that song.
Well, I didn't really stop thinking about it because as soon as I got home, I pulled up Youtube and typed in "Hanging Tree."
Turns out it is a song from the movie Hunger Games: Mockingjay (sang by Jennifer Lawerence) and was also written about in the book. I have not seen the movie nor have I read the book so, I just did not know. And I am sure that there are plenty of other people who have not seen or read it as well.
Don't NO PERSON OF COLOR want to walk into a place and hear HANGING TREE especially, if you never knew it was from a movie. HAHA . . . I am laughing now.
I still haven't listened to the lyrics so, I really don't know what is being said. But apparently, if I would have, I would know it is about suicide. . . according to one of the comments on Youtube, a person who was totally frustrated that others came to the comments to express how they didn't know what this song was about. Which I don't agree with because they strung up a man. So, I tried to read further however, the comments section of Youtube (or any online publication) can get pretty rude. So, I cut my reading of them short because, the ignorance. Whew!!
I still don't understand the whole upbeat dance mix but, it is from a movie about adult making children fight. I guess in that regard it is appropriate.
I watch the movie Battle Royale, which was pretty crazy. I have seen articles about the similarities between the books Battle Royale and Hunger Games. I am not going to debate how she stole his book. haha. Like how I slide that in there? I am just going to hope I am never out and that "Hanging Tree" comes on again.
And yes, I made my stir fry and banana pudding.
Random thought of the day: I do not like seeing the wives of men I had crushes on growing up I need my girlhood dreams of love to stay intact. I was so hurt when I saw Ronnie Devoe's wife. Dream over. haha.
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