our guest has been david margolick.s strange fruit: billie holiday, cafe society, and an early cry for civil rights. i'm ken paulson. we'll be back next week with another conversation about the first amendment, the arts, and american culture on speaking freely. captioning provided by the freedom forum first amendment center. captioning by tate at captionmax www.captionmax.com >> thanks for coming today. we are announcing are temporary homeowner's property tax reduction program. this is what most assessor's up and down the state are doing. homeowners are reliable -- of all property owners are eligible for a temporary, 1-year property-tax assessment reduction if they believe or if we believe dave -- the assess the value has fallen above their market value, which means that the value would be lower than the market value. in general, homeowners who are eligible, chances are, they purchased homes after 2003. we do get applicants who have owned homes since 1995 or earlier. in general, anybody who is owned their home prior to

the song is strange fruit, and it's the subject of a new book by our guest, david margolick. welcome. thank you, ken. are there other books out there about a single song? i'm familiar with dave marsh's take on louie louie, but this has to be an unusual premise for a new book. i don't think there are very many. i think there's a book about amazing grace, and i'm told there's a book in the works about we shall overcome. but i think there really aren't many songs that you could write entire books about. this is one of the few. and this was not a tough sell to a publisher because they saw your piece in vanity fair. they saw the piece in vanity fair, and they thought that it could be expanded upon into a book. and it certainly works very well. for a generation of americans who are not familiar with the song-- and it's been conspicuously absent-- how would you describe the song and its impact? well, the song was a song about lynching. you know, it was a song about black bodies hanging on southern trees, and it was a song that came out in 1939 at a time when people simply weren't ta