Songfacts®:

• Toronto born and Brooklyn raised singer-songwriter Script Shepherd supplied the beat for this track. He also sung the chorus - the first time he'd ever got to sing a guest hook on an album.
• Shepherd and his team sent the track with the hook to Eminem's camp and the Detroit rapper chose the song through Shady A&R rep Riggs Morales. Script only got to hear the finished version when Recovery leaked. "I was in the bathroom," he recalled to MTV News "My wife called me, and I thought it was a bug [in the house]. She was like, 'You gotta come now.' It was amazing. I was in the house with my family. My kids were going to sleep. I woke them up. It was such a tight-knit project. I didn't have a copy of it. I heard it on the Internet like everybody else, and I was the most excited person in the world, besides my wife."
• Despite sharing the title with 2005 movie The Cinderella Man, the song was not inspired by the Russell Crowe flick. At the time Shepherd was getting over the loss of his older brother who got stabbed in front of his mother. He explained; "I liked the film. But at the time, I was going through a hard time. My brother had just passed away.
  It's a stadium feel, an anthem," Shepherd added about the song. "Like marching, marching towards something. The sound is big, the message is big on the record. It's about just coming from nothing, not doubting yourself. It sounds like you're marching towards a goal. The guitars are rifting, and it has little bells keeping it melodic. It's a strong record that's motivating. And Em did something motivating with it. I just wanted to have people feel like they're moving with the record, have a Rocky feel. It sounded more authentic to have people feel like they were stomping in the record."
  Shepherd explained the chorus is meant to inspire. "The hook says, 'If I had a time machine, I'd be a Cinderella man/ Music is my time machine/ Call me Cinderella man,' " he said. "Basically, it's like, music can allow you to do all types of things. You can change the world with music. You can go back and enlighten and move people forward just with sounds and connection. Music is a time machine."