You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made.

I'm Rishikesh Herway.

This episode contains explicit language.

Solange Noll's released her first album in 2002 at the age of 16.

Her third album, A Seed at the Table, came out in September 2016 and debuted at number one on the Billboard charts.

It's gotten widespread critical acclaim, including getting named album of the year by Pitchfork and by Vib.

In this episode, Solange takes apart the song Cranes in the Sky.

The story starts in 2008 when Solange was in the studio with producer Rafael Sadeek.

This is Solange.

When I was actually working on Hattley Street Dreams, which is my second album, I thought Rafael could be the perfect person to try to help me rework some of the production on the songs.

You know, we tried, but ultimately it just didn't work.

But he was just such a joy to work with.

I mean, he's a legend and I learned so much just being in the room with him.

And on my way out, I just asked him, do you have any instrumentals laying around that you might want to give me?

And he gave me a CD with a few instrumentals.

But it was clear they weren't going to make it for that record.

I don't think I actually listened to the CD until maybe like two or three months later.

And there was one that was just a sketch, just drums, the bass, and the strings.

I immediately had this really strong reaction.

I went to my hotel room and wrote the lyrics in the melody.

Just immediately coming up with the first four lines that I tried to structure.

I tried to drink it away.

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