“Crane” is a simple story but the language choices provide another view that’s quite different.

Track: “Crane”
Album: Hail and Farewell, Gothenburg (1995)

“Crane” is a sort of culmination of all of the ideas across Hail and Farewell, Gothenburg. The narrator wanders around town and feels like the only person left in the world, similar to “Ending the Alphabet.” They try to show someone a commercial good (here, a watch, but in “Milk Song,” an answering machine) that is a representation of something larger about communication and experience. They look out over natural beauty and struggle with it as it contrasts with their emotions.

The best part is the phrasing of “I was afraid that my arm was broken // but it was only kinda run down.” We can hear in that description a person given to dramatic expression, similar to the choice of “felt like I was the only guy in town.” These are important reminders of the limitations of perspective. This is often an accident, as narrators in love songs make us feel like both people are in love with each other, but John Darnielle uses it purposefully. You get the sense across many of these songs that these narrators had more to do with their current state than they let on. If you’re the only person whose thoughts we can experience we feel bad for you if you feel poorly, but this obscures at least one other human being. There’s a little defensiveness bleeding through here with “and I don’t need you to tell me so,” but the whole watch conversation just confirms what you probably already suspected.