Hello ladies and gents this is the Viking telling you that today we are talking about
BILLIE HOLIDAY
Family Business?
When Holiday was in her early teens, her mother found employment as a sex worker out of a brothel. In 1929, Holiday herself would join her mother in the oldest profession in the world, all before she was 14 years old. Mother and daughter would be arrested after police raided the brothel in May 1929. Both were released by the end of the year.
A Mother’s Worst Nightmare
On December 14, 1926, Holiday’s mother came home from work, only to discover her daughter being assaulted by their neighbor, Wilbur Rich. She was only 11 years old at the time. Rich was arrested for attempting to rape Holiday, and Holiday was brought to the House of the Good Shepherd for the second time in her life.
She was kept there in protective custody as state witness and crime victim until February 1927.
“Sunday is Gloomy…”
One of Holiday’s more controversial songs was her 1941 song “Gloomy Sunday,” a song that was translated into English from an original piece by Hungarian composer Rezso Seress. The song has infamously become known as the “Hungarian Suicide Song,” due to the nature of the song’s lyrics and the legend of several people supposedly having been driven to take their own lives after listening to the song.
While the full extent of this legend will never be confirmed (though it’s worth pointing out that the composer himself would die by suicide in 1968), lots of people took the legend seriously. The BBC banned the song from being played over the radio, though this was because they didn’t want a song that depressing being played while the British were fighting in World War II.
Surprisingly, the ban wasn’t lifted until 2002.
Awkward Timing, Fellas…
Holiday spent her final moments of life under arrest. While she was in the hospital in 1959, agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics descended upon her. The Bureau had reportedly been focusing on Holiday for nearly 20 years, and as she was dying, she was put under arrest and had a police guard placed upon her room.
For the Father I Never Knew
In 1939, Holiday released “Strange Fruit.” Controversial upon its release, the song deals with racism in the United States, and specifically the lynching of black people, which was horrifically common at the time. Holiday was initially worried about violent reprisals against her for singing about the topic, but she was determined to go forward with it in honor of her father, who had died when a hospital refused to treat him for a lung disorder on account of his race.
And as always have a chilled day from the Viking
Comments
Post a Comment