Songfacts®:

• In "Frogs," human beings are likened to blindly leaping amphibians – in a good way.
  
  Responding to a confused fan's email, Nick Cave used his Red Hand Files to explain exactly what the otherwise opaque "Frogs" is about. In the song, a couple, "most likely" Cave and his wife, Susie, are walking home from church ("'Cause all will be well, say the bells / It's Sunday morning and I'm holding your hand") after hearing a priest tell the story of Cain and Abel ("Ushering in the week, he knelt down / And crushed his brother's head in with a bone"). In that biblical story, Cain kills his brother Abel. Cave observed that the story is especially significant because it details the first human interaction after God banished Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden – setting the stage for a species that is perpetually at odds with itself and perpetually fueled by violent impulses.
  
  Yet, Cave stressed, the husband and wife don't see this grim, harsh aspect of human existence as they make their way down the street. They are happy and hopeful and see a world "teeming with life." Humanity is then likened to frogs leaping from the "gutters" of this material and seemingly meaningless existence, always reaching for God, always falling short, yet also recuperating and leaping again. Cave mentions the dead, who he says have been made into "children," now "jumping happily among the weeping clouds."
  
  When Cave sings, "Take that gun out of your hand," he's calling for humanity to find peace and love, to reject the violent impulse that started with Cain and Abel.
  
  When Cave sings "Kill me!" he's asking to be killed by God's love, rescued from the desolation of existence, to be born something new and transcendent. As the lyrics are sung, the instruments reach an emotional peak (or "orgasm," as Cave puts it), but then fade back again — just like the leaping frogs who come so close to Heaven yet always fall back down to Earth again.
  
  Cave finished the piece with the statement that, "Even though acts of human brokenness begin and end the song, the delighted dance of life is played out upon this substratum of suffering, the one eternally entangled with the other. This is, if you like, the meaning of the song."
• Kristoffer Kristofferson walks by kicking a can
  In a shirt he hasn't washed for years
  Hop inside my coat, hop inside my coat
  
  Here, Cave is referring to Kristofferson's "Sunday Morning Coming Down," which Cave describes as a "great song of spiritual desolation."
• "Frogs" was the second single released off The Bad Seeds' 18th studio album, Wild God. The first was the title track.
• Cave released the "Frogs" single on vinyl, with the album track as the A-side and an instrumental version of the song as the B-side.
• On his website's announcement for the "Frogs" release, Cave identified "Frogs" as the first song written for Wild God. The first lyrics written for the album were the song's opening lines:
  
  Ushering in the week, he knelt down and crushed his brother's head in with a bone
  It's my great privilege to walk you home
  
  The post ends with Cave's statement that, "The sheer exuberance of a song like 'Frogs,' it just puts a big f---ing smile on my face."
• Despite the negative aspects of human existence acknowledged in "Frogs," the song has an uplifting and inspiring energy that Cave felt defines all of Wild God. "I hope the album has the effect on listeners that it's had on me. It bursts out of the speaker, and I get swept up with it. It's a complicated record, but it's also deeply and joyously infectious. There is never a masterplan when we make a record. The records rather reflect back the emotional state of the writers and musicians who played them. Listening to this, I don't know, it seems we're happy."
• Radiohead's Colin Greenwood played bass on roughly half of the Wild God songs, including "Frogs," while Bad Seeds bassist Martyn P. Casey handled the rest.
• Nick Cave started writing Wild God on New Year's Day 2023. He and Warren Ellis produced the album, which David Fridmann mixed. The band recorded the album at Miraval Studios in Provence, France, and Soundtree Studios in Shoreditch, East London.
• On Wild God, the Bad Seeds embraced a fully collaborative recording process for the first time since their 2016 album, Skeleton Tree. Guitarist George Vjestica reflected on how this renewed teamwork sparked creative freedom, telling Mojo magazine: "On Wild God, it felt like there was more space to express yourself. But you don't get many passes. You've got to be on it."
  
  Recalling his experience working on the track "Frogs," Vjestica shared: "The first night we arrived in France, I tried something that just wasn't working."
  
  That night, he found himself fixated on Glen Campbell's "Wichita Lineman" and its beautifully simple guitar line. "The next morning, I went in and did it in one take. Just very simple and it absolutely fit," he said. "Nick and Colin (Greenwood) were like, 'That's the one.'"