Songfacts®:

• Man On The Moon is a concept album split into five acts about a journey through Cleveland rapper Kid Cudi's consciousness. Boomy-voiced rapper Common narrates it and this thoughtful track sets the scene.
• Kid Cudi (real name Scott Mescudi)'s father passed away from cancer when he was eleven-years-old. His death had a significant effect on both his personality and music. In this song Mescudi notes that, "Since my father died, I ain't been right since." He told HipHopDX.com: "It's definitely important to me to make mention of my father because I think that does play a major part in why I am who I am, like my character and how I think and how I move in life. And this album was my way of finally letting out a lot of feelings that I've yet to even mention to my mother."
• HipHopDX.com asked Mescudi what the "moon" in the album title and cover art represents. He explained: "The moon is pretty much my place of peace, whether it's a room or my mind. It's really your own personal space. It could be interpreted any different way. I didn't wanna have it so literal. I want kids to interpret it and find their own moon in their world."
• On this track, Cudi sings that he'd like to experience "carefree living like Jay-Z." Djbooth.net asked the rapper if he feels such an aim is truly realistic for an artist. He replied: "I wrote that song from an ignorant standpoint, man – I wanted to have ignorance be the undertone of the whole song. And it really is to show what one thinks when his back is up against the wall. It's really to flip Jay's line and kind of use it in my favor. It worked – it's the only way I could've explained the situation."
• "Soundtrack 2 My Life" played a pivotal role in shaping Travis Scott's belief that a rap career was within reach. "It's just the soundtrack to my life," Scott told Rolling Stone. "From 0:00 to the end of the song, I felt like we were brothers or something. We live like the same life."
  
  He first heard the track in 2009, while he was a high school senior, and the connection was immediate. "I was like, 'You know what, I could probably make it,'" he said.
• Travis Scott eventually got the chance to work with Kid Cudi, first teaming up on "Through The Late Night," a track from Scott's 2016 album Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight. Their creative partnership continued in the years that followed, most notably with "The Scotts," released in 2020 under that joint name, which debuted at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.