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MORE WORDS!!
I got an interesting take on this from my girlfriend last night. She told me her interpretation was that Kane was actually using "Strange Fruit" and juxtaposing it with materialistic and narcissistic lyrics intentionally, in an effort to show how vapid and inconsequential these things (divorce, drugs, relationship problems, alimony), are compared to what black America has been through. I've listened to the song a lot lately, and the phrase "black bodies swinging in the summer breeze" comes up more times than I remember. It kind of writhes under the surface of the song and then bubbles up, and when it does it's like a punch to the gut. You're listening to lyrics about Instagram and not being able to do cocaine, and then you hear "black bodies swinging in the summer breeze," and it snaps things back into focus.
I think "Bloood on the Leaves" might be a very deliberate compare contrast piece. I think my girlfriend was right and that the point of the song is to make the main narrative sound totally empty... to remind people of how things are and how things used to be. And as f***ed as they are now, we shouldn't forget that it was not really that long ago that these lynchings still took place frequently.
I always thought the point was to compare the suffering of celebrity to the suffering of slavery and segregation, but I think the point might be to say, "hey, I think life is so hard because I have to pay alimony... but 100 years ago I would have been swinging in the summer breeze."
Just a thought. Sorry. Not trying to be a dick, or be confrontational. Interested to see if I'm making any sense.
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