Songfacts®:

• Solange croons on this melancholic soul tune about her desire to escape the pain that is present in her life. The singer tries drinking, dancing, shopping, keeping herself busy - anything to help her move on, but those "metal clouds" won't go away.
• The track dates back to 2008 when R&B producer and frequent collaborator Raphael Saadiq sent Solange the drums that inspired her to pen the song. She recalled in an Instagram post:
  
  "It was 8 years ago Raphael Saadiq handed me a CD with a few instrumentals. One was just drums, strings, and bass. I went home and wrote 'Cranes' that night in my hotel room.
  
  When I finished writing and creating A Seat At A Table in a little house in New Iberia, Louisiana…..I revisited 'Cranes' once again. I called Raphael that night and asked if he would help me to elevate the production on a few of the other songs of the album to see their fullest potential. I am so happy eight years later Cranes is finally out in the world."
• The music video was directed by Solange herself and her husband, Alan Ferguson. The stunning backdrops were shot in the singer's new home in New Orleans, the deserts of her home state, Texas, and the mountains of New Mexico.
• In 2017, Solange's sister, Beyoncé, asked her about the meaning of this song's title for Interview magazine. "'Cranes in the Sky' is actually a song that I wrote eight years ago," she said. "It's the only song on the album that I wrote independently of the record, and it was a really rough time. I know you remember that time. I was just coming out of my relationship with Julez's father. We were junior high school sweethearts, and so much of your identity in junior high is built on who you're with. You see the world through the lens of how you identify and have been identified at that time.
  
  So I really had to take a look at myself, outside of being a mother and a wife, and internalize all of these emotions that I had been feeling through that transition. I was working through a lot of challenges at every angle of my life, and a lot of self-doubt, a lot of pity-partying. And I think every woman in her twenties has been there - where it feels like no matter what you are doing to fight through the thing that is holding you back, nothing can fill that void.
  
  I used to write and record a lot in Miami during that time, when there was a real estate boom in America, and developers were developing all of this new property. There was a new condo going up every ten feet. You recorded a lot there as well, and I think we experienced Miami as a place of refuge and peace. We weren't out there wilin' out and partying. I remember looking up and seeing all of these cranes in the sky. They were so heavy and such an eyesore, and not what I identified with peace and refuge. I remember thinking of it as an analogy for my transition - this idea of building up, up, up that was going on in our country at the time, all of this excessive building, and not really dealing with what was in front of us. And we all know how that ended. That crashed and burned. It was a catastrophe. And that line came to me because it felt so indicative of what was going on in my life as well. And, eight years later, it's really interesting that now, here we are again, not seeing what's happening in our country, not wanting to put into perspective all of these ugly things that are staring us in the face."
• Solange wrote this song after ending her marriage to Daniel Smith, with whom she had a son Daniel Julez. Speaking to her sister Beyoncé in an article for Interview magazine, the songstress recalled.
  
  "It was a really rough time. I was just coming out of my relationship with Julez's father. We were junior high school sweethearts, and so much of your identity in junior high is built on who you're with. You see the world through the lens of how you identify and have been identified at that time. So I really had to take a look at myself, outside of being a mother and a wife, and internalize all of these emotions that I had been feeling through that transition."
  
  "I remember looking up and seeing all of these cranes in the sky. They were so heavy and such an eyesore, and not what I identified with peace and refuge," she continued. "I remember thinking of it as an analogy for my transition – this idea of building up, up, up that was going on in our country at the time, all of this excessive building, and not really dealing with what was in front of us. And we all know how that ended. That crashed and burned. It was a catastrophe. And that line came to me because it felt so indicative of what was going on in my life as well."
• When Tina Knowles introduced her daughter Beyoncé at the Grammy Awards in 2017, she pointed out that both of her daughters were Grammy winners. Solange earned the honor with this track, which won for Best R&B Performance that year.