Analyzing "Strange Fruit"

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/billie+holiday/strange+fruit_20017859.html
"Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees."
This song is about the lynchings in the south. The strange fruit are the bodies of lynched African-American's swinging from the tree. Meeropol seems to have a dark sense of irony when he says "Pastoral scene of the gallant south, The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth, Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh, Then the sudden smell of burning flesh." This song paints a picture of horror.