Eastern philosophies hold that we absorb part of the consciousness of the things we eat. But too often, musicians have treated these things lightheartedly, relegating them to the sugary status of novelty songs. Yet these bold songs have used food in darker ways as potent metaphors to register their discontent with the world.

Strange Fruit

Photo by AJ REYNOLDS

Years before Martin Luther King Jr., began organizing, the Civil Rights Movement found an arresting voice in 1939 through Billie Holiday. That year, the immeasurably influential jazz and pop vocalist recorded “Strange Fruit,” one of the movement’s most intense laments. Based on a poem by Abel Meerobol, Holiday finds the music and inveighs with poetry, “Southern trees bear a strange fruit … Black body swinging in the Southern breeze.” Much of the iconic anti-lynching song’s staggering power lies in Holiday’s breathtaking restraint. With each line, her emotion escalates and threatens to explode, but never does. As her burning voice swings from side to side, pushed by the wind, and we become spectators. She implicates our history, and we are guilty.

Orange Crush

Just as Billie Holiday challenged America’s domestic brutality through food-related symbolism, Athens legend R.E.M. later did the same regarding the nation’s bloody foreign affairs. The group’s 1988 song “Orange Crush” is a searing commentary on the experience of being yanked from normal life and thrown into battle to “serve your conscience overseas.” When Michael Stipe sings over ringing guitars, “I’ve got my spine, I’ve got my Orange Crush,” he’s referencing Agent Orange, which ironically destroyed food supplies during the Vietnam War. The music itself feels like a soundtrack to war, featuring call-and-response vocals, a drill sergeant and guitars that charge up and stop.

Tea Song

Folk singer Michael Hurley’s stunning 1965 “Tea Song” crystallizes the entire world’s pain into a pot of tea symbolically brewing for him alone. “Tea Song” remains one of the most devastating meditations on loneliness. A mournful acoustic guitar chugs along as Hurley’s primal, defeated voice courageously conjures its remaining strength to leap between two aching notes, lingering at the end of each line as though he’s afraid that it too will soon desert him. He yearningly belts out, “Buddha made of stone and his eyes are ruby. But his thoughts and dreams are distilled in the tea,” recognizing the spirituality that comes only to those forced to take shelter in the lonely arms of solitude.