Song · Solange
“Cranes in the Sky” by Solange
From the album A Seat at the Table (2016)
“Cranes in the Sky” by Solange appears on 7 radio countdowns from 5 stations between 2016 and 2025. It was first released in 2016 on the album A Seat at the Table. Its best result is #50 on The Current Top 89 Songs of 2016. In the combined RockLists rankings it is the #223 indie & aaa song of 2016 and #1,703 indie & aaa song of all time.
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"Cranes in the Sky" came out on October 5, 2016 as the first single from A Seat at the Table, Solange's third album, released on Saint Records and Columbia. She wrote it with Raphael Saadiq and Troy Johnson and produced it with Saadiq.
It's a mid-tempo soul ballad that moves like a slow exhale, and its subject is all the ways she tried and failed to outrun a long-held hurt, each distraction piling up and none of them working. Solange co-directed the video with Alan Ferguson. The song won the Grammy for Best R&B Performance at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards, and in 2021 Rolling Stone placed it at number 487 on its updated list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
Year-end countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 50 | The Current Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN | The Current Top 89 Songs of 2016 | 89 |
| 2016 | 84 | WFUV New York, NY | WFUV Top 90 Songs of 2016 | 90 |
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 1405 | WXPN | WXPN 2020 Greatest Songs of All Time | 2020 |
| 2024 | 777 | The Colorado Sound | The Colorado Sound Top 1055 Songs of the 21st Century | 1055 |
| 2024 | 276 | WXPN | WXPN The 885 Greatest Songs of the 21st Century (2024) | 885 |
| 2025 | 227 | 90.9 The Bridge | 90.9 The Bridge Top 909 Songs of the 21st Century | 909 |
| 2025 | 551 | The Current | 893 Essential Songs of The Current: 2005 to Now | 893 |
Also listed as: Cranes In The Sky.
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