They'll Need a Crane
Indulge me while I share how this song related to my life at a time when I desperately needed to know that anyone else knew what I was experiencing.
Are you even a They Might Be Giants fan if you haven’t cried your eyes out alone in your car, listening to ‘They’ll Need a Crane?’ You’re driving back from a solo evening trip to the grocery store just so you can breath again and you cry the second this song comes on because you realize that you absolutely cannot stay in your current relationship.
The realization comes with the overwhelming sense that it’s going to take a metal ball hung from a chain to demolish it all and then rebuilding your life into something recognizable seems like its own impossible achievement. Yes, you can still be a fan, you just won’t be me.
I promise this is the last song for a while that rose to prominence in my life amidst my impending divorce.
A song for the soul.
I’ve made it to the 5th to the last track on the LINCOLN album from TMBG and this is one is a certified no-skips-allowed banger. I loved this song from the first listen. The blend of acoustic and electric guitar from Flansburgh along with the keyboard skills of Linnell lay a true-to-style foundation for their clever, deeply meaningful lyrics with beautiful melodies and catchy pop rock. It’s an obvious single and no wonder they chose it for their first ever live television appearance.
By the time I first heard ‘They’ll Need a Crane,” I had experienced teenage heartbreak - and would again before high school was through - and while the song was a go-to for me, something deep down told me that I wasn’t experiencing nearly what this song was expressing. As my teen marriage that spanned 16 1/2 years wound down a never ending spiral staircase of confusion, despair and self doubt, this song, along with “I’ve Got a Match,” became very clear.
These two songs and I were atoms sharing the electrons of music and profound emotion to form a stable molecule of singular meaning. A musical covalent bond of lived experience.
Lyrics that mirrored my life.
Love sees love's happiness
But happiness can't see that love is sad
That love is sad
Sadness is hanging there to show love
somewhere something needs a change
They need a change
Have you ever felt that sense that there is love in your life but not happiness? That the love alone is trying to desperately hold together. That it’s sad? If so, you likely know what it’s like the moment you realize that you need a change. Something has to happen.
Lad's gal is all he has
Gal's gladness hangs upon the love of lad
The love of lad
Some things gal says to lad aren't meant as bad but cause a little pain
They cause him pain
I cannot forget the feeling that I had when things were at their most difficult. Like being in a pressure cooker. This verse spoke to my experience of feeling the intense connection between Gal’s perceived love from me and her happiness.
It is really difficult to feel 100% responsible for another person’s happiness. Especially when you have completely lost the ability to maintain your own. If the temperature of the love drops, so to does the barometer of happiness. This was always a recipe for words to be thrown my way that I believe were not always intended to hurt but always did.
Don't call me at work again
No, no, the boss still hates me
Now sometimes, all of Gal’s instruments (of emotion) drop so low that the worry can only be quenched by immediate reassurances. This would frequently come in the form of phone calls while at work. To the point that my boss is having multiple conversations with me about it. Attempting to stop the phone calls would create turmoil at home and taking no action created turmoil at my job.
This happened at almost every job until the invention of an affordable smart phone and a job where I was able to check one while on the clock. The constant communication attempts just came in a way that bosses weren’t aware.
. . there's a restaurant we should check out
Where the other nightmare people like to go
I mean nice people—
baby wait, I didn't mean to say nightmare
I was absolutely terrible at communicating my feelings in an honest way. There were many opportunities to speak up but I let my fear of Gal’s reaction silence me. I also lacked the maturity or wisdom to know what was the right thing to do.
If you hold feelings inside long enough, they find a way to slip out in little ways. Microscopic ways that Gal’s very observant anxiety fueled eye was keen to pick up, latch onto, and react against. And in many instances, was right to do so. Sometimes, I would try in vain to express my feelings or simply disagree with something but at the slight hint of conflict, I’d try to retract those words as quick as possible.
A home is built on a foundation so it can withstand elements or even the shaking earth beneath it and so is a marriage. Even MORE so with children. After 16 years, that house had settled into that foundation and it was going to take more than careful dissembling. As troubles grew, so did the inevitability of the destruction to come. Along with the exhaustive work required to rebuild a life for both Gal and Lad.
They'll need a crane
To pick the broken ruins up again
To mend her heart
To help him start
To see a world apart from pain
Click below to hear They’ll Need a Crane
From Ruins to Reconstruction.
For the years leading into the final one this song became a best friend to me. I could turn this song on, and thanks to its cheerful melodies, nobody would have guessed I was listening because I felt sad, confused, or lost. I am deeply thankful that this song exists and when I listen now, it is like hearing that lifelong friend who has been here with me through it all.
Do you have any songs in your life that you have been able to lean on or that perfectly mirrored you life in some deeply helpful way?