Album
Fodder on My Wings
Recorded Recording year/dates unknown · Unknown · Produced by Unknown
Introspection and Distance in Nina Simone's Later Work
A deeply personal record about grief and displacement, obscure but worth seeking out.
Fodder on My Wings arrives late in Nina Simone's career as one of her most introspective records. Unlike the politically charged work she was known for, this album turns inward—songs about her father's death and her time living abroad in Liberia, Trinidad, and Switzerland dominate the material. It's a record about displacement and loss, which gives it a quieter, more fragile quality than much of her catalog. The album has never been easy to find. It remained obscure and poorly distributed for decades, which is partly why it doesn't occupy the same space in her legacy as Baltimore (1978), an album from the same period that managed both commercial reach and artistic depth.
The record shows Simone at her most vulnerable as a pianist and vocalist. These are personal songs, not statements meant for a movement or a cause. There's a melancholy that runs through the material, the sound of someone processing private grief through music rather than channeling public rage. The instrumentation is spare enough to keep the focus on her voice and piano work, which is where Simone's real power always lay anyway. The confusion around the album's title—whether songs are called Fodder on My Wings, Fodder in My Wings, or variations thereof—only adds to its murky, hard-to-pin-down reputation.
If you're already deep into Simone's work and want to understand her emotional range beyond the protest songs, this is worth tracking down. It's not the place to start if you're new to her—begin with Nina Simone and Piano or I Put a Spell on You instead. But for listeners who know her well, Fodder on My Wings reveals something different: a woman reckoning with private sorrow in the studio, alone with her instrument.
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