Since 2020 I’ve walked around the grounds of the Mackenzie King Estate a couple times a week. Other than the dogs and I, we’re most often surrounded by corvids and their curiousity. One morning, I saw a guy flying a drone and it got me thinking about the relationship between birds and drones and the potential for conflict. In fact crows have attacked drones on many occasions, and it is plausible that they conspire to take out drones over their eight-year lifespan. In there somewhere was born the concept for ‘As the Drone Flies’. The intent in this fantasy, was to give nature a small victory.

Lyrics

Corvid stares through beady eyes
I catch a glimpse and there flashed my life

As it goes - yeah yeah yeah - as it goes

Sense a lack of soul in the sky
Eye-to-eye with a robot spy

As it goes - yeah yeah yeah - as it goes

The sky once shared among the cunning and wise
Bewildered by the heartless - as the drone flies

The beauty in a wheat field of crows
A brush stroke with a Van Gogh glow

As it goes - yeah yeah yeah - as it goes

Along came the bird with no eyes
The murder shifts to plot and devise

As it goes - yeah yeah yeah - as it goes

The sky once shared among the cunning and wise
Bewildered by the heartless - as the drone flies