or is jason mraz just making up things for lyrics?
No. They are lifted into place in sections by one or more other cranes, the telescopic arm kind, which are either in a nearby street or on the building site. I watched several being built and then dismantled over a period of three years at a large development across the street from my house. However, I saw a TV programme about how they built one on top of a mountain, and there they used helicopters to lower the sections into place.
Plenty of cranes are built on the shop floor and lifted in place....so no it doesn't take a crane to build a crane. There are cranes that need another crane and that is the the ones used in the center of new skyscrapers where they build a hoist on top of the building to add to the length of the main crane. So maybe that is the kind he is talking about
