Songfacts®:

• This song about wonder and opportunity centers on the image Jones came up with of a little with magic runes, which she casts on rooftops and alleys. It channels cosmic possibility:
  
  We were born forever
  Tunneled into the fugitive night
• Walter Becker of Steely Dan produced the Flying Cowboys album and played synthesizer on this track. The other personnel:
  
  Drums: John Robinson
  Acoustic guitar: Buzz Feiten
  Bass: Neil Stubenhaus
  Steel guitar: Dean Parks
  Keyboard: Greg Phillinganes
  Saxophone: Bob Sheppard
  Percussion: Bob Zimmiti
• Rickie Lee Jones was never an MTV star, but she did make a video for this song with director Ethan Russell, who made a short film with Jones in the '70s that aired in many record stores. In a Songfacts interview, she talked about the video for "Satellites."
  
  "The look of the video made it hard to really see what was going on," she said. "And the director just gave it to someone to edit and didn't even sit there and say, 'I like this, I don't like that.' So I was... slightly disappointed. But I learned that directors make their film, and you, the artist, are a guest. The idea that an artist makes a video is ridiculous, unless they direct it themselves. So that was a good lesson."