Songfacts®:

• Nick Cave recorded "Spinning Song" for Ghosteen, an album written in the aftermath of the tragic death of his son Arthur in 2015.
• "Spinning Song" centers on a folktale that Cave had written a few years prior about Elvis Presley. The lyrics take the form of a children's poem that depicts the King of Rock and Roll and his Queen. The last verse describes a feather or soul that spins and rises "upward and upward," eventually reaching Susie, Cave's wife, who is sitting at the kitchen table listening to the radio.
  
  "Now for me this image of Susie sitting at the kitchen table listening to the radio is crucial, because it became the locus not only of this particular song, but of the album itself," Cave explained in his 2022 book Faith, Hope and Carnage. "This is the last intact memory I have of my wife before we heard the news of Arthur's death."
• The genesis of "Spinning Song" can be traced back to an improvisation session between Nick Cave and his longtime collaborator, Warren Ellis. For hours, the duo explored a single, repetitive theme, with Ellis often getting lost in a dissociative state, playing the same thing over and over again with minimal variation. While this can be both a blessing and a curse, Cave often finds it provides him with the space to develop a vocal idea beyond what he may have initially envisioned.
  
  However, this can also present challenges, particularly if Cave's meticulously crafted lyrics don't fit with the music that Ellis has fixated upon. In these instances, Cave may be forced to abandon his ideas or repurpose them in fragments. Amid this frustration and unfocused creativity, he sometimes stumbles upon unexpected moments of inspiration. It is in these spaces that he believes mysterious influences come into play, guiding him towards unexpected treasures.
  
  "'Spinning Song' has a profound effect on me as a listener because I don't really feel that I was involved in its conception, or that I was consciously aware of the making of it," wrote Cave in Faith, Hope and Carnage. "It really felt that it was made by other hands."
• The whole album has a prayerful aspect in which Cave wanted to communicate to Arthur. "That's what Ghosteen was for me," he wrote. "Arthur was snatched away, he just disappeared, and this felt like some way of making contact again and saying goodbye."