Cranes

This is my favourite song. And it came about in such an easy way. At the time I was working as a music teacher in a local primary school welcoming kids to the joys of the piano. One random sunny day I was driving down through Wicklow and I noticed that a colossal blue construction crane was looming over the dense forests as I passed by. This perplexed me. Recently I had been noticing these construction cranes growing in numbers and cascading the horizon of Dublin from the city centre to the suburbs, and now Wicklow – the garden of Ireland.

Both their physical presence and what they implied made me feel powerless and cheerless at the prospect of the future. More apartment buildings, which would eventually lead to ghost towns, seemed to be pulled from the earth by these cranes over a matter of weeks. A silent metallic force was working in full view to change our land forever. They appeared to be malevolent unspoken giants intimidating even the grand trees of Wicklow who were now bowing as sullen forms beside the cranes. This ‘progress’ was occurring all around as we ignorantly sped through the streets and roads without a thought for our altered environment.

As I sat in Dun Laoghaire over a coffee, the words formed rapidly on a page as a poem. And I thought that’s what it would remain as. However, some weeks later in my dining room as I freely strummed on the guitar I began singing the words over the progression in a weaving melody that wouldn’t leave my mind. There was nothing else to develop with the song - and it was done.

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