Songfacts®:

• Rush's twentieth studio album, Clockwork Angels, is built around a narrative of a young man's journey to follow his dreams in an alternative world where, instead of fossil fuels, modern machinery runs on the power of steam. "What did I do before there were words?" Geddy Lee asks on this power ballad. Producer Nick Raskulinecz commented to MusicRadar.com: "A really cool ballad, kind of a reflective moment of the character in the story."
• The song features strings arranged by Beck's father, David Campbell, who has also worked with Evanescence, Metallica and My Chemical Romance, amongst others. Raskulinecz told MusicRadar: "We always knew we were going to put strings on the song. Alex (Lifeson, guitar) wrote and played demo strings on a keyboard. At first, we thought about using that, but then we decided to go for it and have a real string section."
• Regarding Lifeson's guitar work on this tune, Raskulinecz said: "Alex played his Gibson Dove acoustic. We two tracks, miking him with a U47 tube mic. I put the mic about three feel away so you can get the nice body of the guitar. It's a pretty gorgeous sound."