Songfacts®:

• This song chronicles the time when Cassadra Jenkins was left behind in an Aurora, Illinois hotel room after falling sick with COVID on tour, a misfortune that coincided with William Shatner's space voyage aboard the Blue Origin space shuttle.
  
  Aware she was trapped in the same town where her beloved Wayne's World was set, Jenkins rewatched the film. And in her feverish state, she was astonished to discover something she'd somehow missed in a lifetime of fandom: Dana Carvey's Garth casually humming the Star Trek theme. For Jenkins, this felt like a cosmic Easter egg dropped straight into her lap.
  
  "That's one of the best parts about writing a song," Jenkins explained to Mojo magazine. "You get to connect all these dots, and in this little tiny world that you've created, it makes sense." In the world of Aurora, Illinois, these dots include everything from intergalactic space flights to the profound isolation of a quarantine hotel room.
• The song builds in intensity, starting with Jenkins' melody and culminating in a crescendo of violins and crunchy guitar. This musical progression mirrors the growing sense of isolation and frustration expressed in the lyrics.
• "Aurora, IL" is part of Jenkins' third album, My Light, My Destroyer, which is brimming with celestial motifs. Other tracks, like "Betelgeuse" and "Shatner's Theme," orbit similar astronomical territory, tying the personal to the cosmic in Jenkins' singular style.