Songfacts®:

• "There'd Better Be a Mirrorball" is a moody and meditative breakup song where Alex Turner documents a relationship that's doomed to fail.
• So can we please be absolutely sure
  That there's a mirrorball?
  
  A mirrorball is a spherical reflective ornament traditionally hung from the ceiling in discos. It's unclear what the object represents within the context of the song, but one suggestion is Turner fears he's had his last dance with his lover.
• Arctic Monkeys aren't the first artist to use a mirrorball as a metaphorical device.
  
  Elbow's in-love singer Guy Garvey croons about dancing underneath the moon as if it were a mirrorball.
  
  Taylor Swift compares herself to a shiny ball hanging above a dance floor. Like the spherical mirror-covered object, she is sparkly and adaptable, but shatters when her heart is broken.
• Arctic Monkeys released "There'd Better Be a Mirrorball" as the lead single from The Car on August 29, 2022. Turner references the album title in the chorus.
  
  So if you wanna walk me to the car
  You oughta know I'll have a heavy heart
  
  Turner acknowledges their romance is nearing its end, but is reluctant to say his final goodbye.
• Turner is the sole writer of the piano-led ballad. Frequent Arctic Monkeys producer James Ford creates a jazz-tinged soundscape with dashes of James Bond-esque pop balladry sprinkled in the mix.
• The Alex Turner-directed lo-fi video shows the band recording the track at Butley Priory in Suffolk and La Frette in Paris. Turner documented the sessions with his 60mm video camera, later compiling his footage for the clip. "That gave everybody a bit of room," he told The Guardian, adding that James Ford "definitely didn't mind that I had something to play with."
  
• The song's intro was the first thing Arctic Monkeys wrote for The Car. It initiated the whole basis of the album. "I really had the feeling was worth following," Alex Turner revealed to Radio X's John Kennedy.
  
  "It feels like a theme or something," he continued. "Then the discussion became, I suppose, how to wrangle that into a pop song, which I think by the end of the song, it feels as if you've arrived in that territory."
  
  "Everything else on the album had to be able to hang out with 'Mirrorball,'" Turner added. "That was that."