Inside The Glee Tribute to Cory Monteith

— -- "But I always thought that I'd see you again," is a line from James Taylor's "Fire & Rain" and it's one of the songs that will be sung tonight on the "Glee" tribute episode to Cory Monteith.

Monteith, who played McKinley High quarterback and glee-club member Finn Hudson on the show, died July 31 in his Vancouver hotel room after mixing heroin and alcohol.

Glee's tribute to Monteith will mirror his real-life death with one on screen. The cause of death for Hudson will be unknown in the show, only that he died two weeks before.

The tearful goodbye to Hudson and Monteith is called "The Quarterback" and will feature other heartfelt songs, such as "Seasons of Love," "I'll Stand By You" and Bruce Springsteen's "No Surrender."

Naya Rivera will sing The Band Perry's "If I Die Young" and Lea Michele, Monteith's real-life girlfriend, will sing Bob Dylan's "Make You Feel My Love."

The storyline will also focus around someone stealing Hudson's letterman jacket and Matthew Morrison's character inviting everyone to join in and sing songs in his memory.

"I've never seen a crew that can't continue shooting because they've left the room sobbing. It was very hard," Executive Producer Ryan Murphy told USA Today. "I struggled even working on it, because what you're seeing is what they felt about not just Finn, but Cory."

A slew of former cast members appear in the episode to also say their goodbyes to the actor they worked alongside since the show began in 2009. Amber Riley, Heather Morris, Jayma Mays and Mark Salling are just a few.

Just last month at the Emmy Awards, former "Glee" co-star Jane Lynch had some choice words about her fallen friend.

"Cory was a beautiful soul," she said. "To a generation who loved Cory so, please know: This gifted and wonderful young man was worthy of your love. And if you were lucky enough to know Cory as we did and witness Cory's goofy, breezy sense of humor, his natural instinct for inclusiveness and his unbridled sense of generosity, day in and day out, I promise, you'd have loved him even more."

And almost everything in the episode was filmed in one take, according to E! News. "Almost everything in that episode is from the first take of every performance because the actors and the crew had a really hard time shooting it,' Murphy told E! "

Murphy added that filming the episode was "really tough on Lea" [Michele], who lost more than a co-star when Monteith died, but that she also is the "strongest 26-year-old I know."

A 30-second promo clip of the show was released last week.

The video starts with his classmates carrying red drumsticks with a black ribbon tied around them, his football helmet and gear being boxed up and a caption, "The hardest word to say," alluding to goodbye.

It continues with a football being placed by his locker, which has been transformed into a memorial for the fallen Gleek. Lea Michele, Monteith's girlfriend on and off screen, is being consoled by Matthew Morrison in the clip.

The episode airs tonight at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT.