Songfacts®:

• The band co-wrote and co-produced this tune with Marti Frederiksen, who has worked with the band since the mid-1990s. It emerged during 10 days of songwriting sessions at Frederiksen's home studio in Los Angeles, when guitarist Brad Whitford came up with the song's foundation in an unusual chord pattern. "They were like jazz changes. It was odd," Whitford recalled to Rolling Stone. Frederiksen then suggested they model the chorus after Slash's melody line in Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child o' Mine."
• It took frontman Steven Tyler six months to come up with the lyrics, eventually seeing the song in cosmic terms. "My thought was that would be a future song – like something they'd listen to on the way to Mars," he told Rolling Stone. "What's rock & roll going to be like in 20 years from now when they're doing that?"
• Tyler's daughter Mia contributes harmony vocals on the big vocal melody. The track "Mia," which closes Aerosmith's 1979 album Night In The Ruts, was named after her.
• Steven Tyler told Rolling Stone the vocal melody section was especially difficult to nail down. "That was the hardest," he said. "I stayed up night after night with that one, and finally when I sang, 'Beautiful, we're free again, we're out of here... ,' it's like when you have an orgasm – you're free. It just worked."