'Cranes in the Sky' was ranked at number 7 on Rolling Stone's '50 Best Songs of 2016' list: 'Solange drops a song that can always stop you dead in your tracks, no matter where or when you hear it – describing the kind of sadness she can't escape by crying, drinking, sexing or shopping it away. They were an eyesore and so disruptive to a place that I found peace in.' She continued, saying that 'all this excessive building' was not 'really dealing with what was in front of us'. You could not look down any street without seeing dozens and dozens of them, and it felt very heavy. And, literally everywhere that I looked, I saw a crane in the sky. She says, 'Like so much of America, there was just so much real estate development.

In speaking of the title, Solange explains a situation where sudden economic growth turned a once quiet, tranquil town into a busy, construction-infested city, where mechanical cranes block the view of the scenery. It describes a person looking to distract themselves in various ways from an unaddressed sadness. Lyrically, the song explores the idea of attempting to avoid the elephant in the room. In 2016, when she had finished writing and creating A Seat at the Table in New Iberia, Louisiana, Solange revisited 'Cranes in the Sky'-shortly after which she called Raphael and asked if he would help produce a few other songs on the album. Two months later, Solange wrote 'Cranes in the Sky' while listening to the instrumentals in a Miami hotel. One consisted simply of drums, strings, and bass. In 2008, producer and singer Raphael Saadiq handed Solange a CD with a few instrumentals on it.

Solange wrote 'Cranes in the Sky' eight years before the album's release, in the aftermath of her break-up with the father of her child–whom she had been with for seven years, since age 13.

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