From Robyn on social media in May 2024:

I wrote “Arms of Love” in Los Angeles in April 1991 while recording a very expensive album for A&M Records. In theory, this was the high life: six weeks in Hollywood on the record company’s dime, recording my new compositions in expensive studios with a professional producer, a great engineer and a well-drilled band.
But my girlfriend and I had just separated (temporarily, as it turned out), and we were both lonely and unsettled. She was back east in Maryland, and I was in California, embroiled in a new and futile relationship with somebody quite incompatible. For the first and only time in my life, I began to suffer from migraines: inexplicable headaches that would settle in my cranium for hours. They didn’t stop me from recording or writing new material, though.
At this point, REM generously offered me a spot on their only American appearance that year at Mountain Stage in West Virginia. Their profile was high, and their public appearances were few: it was a plum gig. Before the show, we were all mooching around backstage, and I was running through songs with REM’s guitarist, Peter Buck. I played them all my latest one, “Arms of Love”, which we didn’t perform that day, but I was amazed - and flattered - to discover a year or so later that REM had recorded a version of it.
“Arms of Love” is very much an LA song to me. That city always seemed too good to be true, full of sensuous anxiety. I’ve made friends with it now, so I’ll probably write fewer songs about it. Meanwhile, I’m delighted to be unleashing this updated version with Emma Swift, recorded in dampest London…
This new version is part of a charity compilation album raising funds for the Fernando Pullum Community Arts Center. You can listen to it here.