Songfacts®:

• Clockwork Angels is a concept album about a young man's quest to follow his dreams, in which he encounters pirates during his travels across an alternative world. Drummer and lyricist Neil Peart told Rolling Stone how a Daphne Du Maurier story inspired this melancholy song. "This Daphne Du Maurier novel Jamaica Inn describes these people called 'The Wreckers' on the coast of the Cornwall in Britain." he explained. "They would not would not only plunder shipwrecks, but they would actually put up a fake light and attract the ships in a storm to crash on their shores so they could loot them. It's just a shocking example of inhumanity, and it happens to be a true story. I wove it all of that into the story of this album."
• Guitarist Alex Lifeson and bassist Geddy Lee switched instruments for the writing of the song, but they went back when it was time to get serious. Producer Nick Raskulinecz told MusicRadar.com: "The song didn't exist until we were in the studio – there was no demo of it. Geddy was in the writing room, playing guitar, and Alex came in and picked up the bass. So the song was written with the two of them playing what aren't their main instruments.
  
  It's probably what gives it such a different feel," he continued. "I tried to get the two of them to switch for the tracking - Alex on bass and Geddy on guitar - but they decided to stick to their designated instruments."
• At first Lifeson struggled with the part Lee wrote for him. Said Raskulinecz to MusicRadar: "The tune is so big, it's got such bounce and swing, but it took some effort. The guitar part in the verse was probably the hardest thing on the record for us to find. Alex had some difficulty playing the part Geddy had written - it was great, but it didn't feel right to him. He had to search for the right part, and it took all day with me going, 'Nope, that's not it… Nope, that's not it.' Finally, he stumbled onto a picking figure, and Geddy and I just stood up and went, 'That's it! That's the part.' The tune came together real fast after that."