Songfacts®:

• Lead singer Geoff Tate described the idea behind the song on the CD-ROM that came packaged with the album: "I started thinking about nature and how perfect it is, and how humans come in and without really thinking about where we fit in we sort of impose ourselves upon it, and that's what the song is about. The disconnectiveness from nature, from ourselves, from each other that we are now."
• Tate posted a short explanation of the Promised Land concept to Queensryche's website: "The album is almost all about reflection, looking at your life, and to write about that, you have to experience it and reflect on it."
• Drummer Scott Rockenfield used a portable ADAT tape recorder for the various recorded sounds at the beginning of this song such as the sound of a train.