"Good Morning Heartache"- Billie Holiday
Born to heartache was Eleanor Fagan
in reform school by 9 in Baltimore, Maryland.
At 11 years old she was almost raped.
But she was blamed and jailed for the case.
When 14 she was arrested again,
for her and mother's prostitution game.
What a sad life for a child, you might say.
But this heartache gave birth to Lady Day.
She sang with Artie Shaw, Count and the Duke.
She sang of "southern trees bearing strange fruit."
In her voice you could tell what pain was all about.
It was catharsis for her tragic life sung out.
She suffered the pangs of drug addiction,
with frequent busts, arrests and convictions.
A pearly white gardenia graced her ear.
At Carnegie Hall, she was something to hear.
As she lay ill the law came in again.
Handcuffed to the bed, her life came to an end.
So, "God bless the child, that got her own,"
our Billie Holiday whose heartache's gone.
2/12/17
Eleanora Fagan, professionally known as Billie Holiday, and Lady Day was an American jazz musician and singer-songwriter with a career spanning nearly thirty years. She died at 44.