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, R.E.M. 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 R.E.M.’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 R.E.M. 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.

Robyn talked about this song on the promo record SPECTRE, on which he explains each of the songs on RESPECT:

"'Arms of Love' ... it was originally called 'Arms of God.' I had it
in mind for Roger McGuinn, in fact. R.E.M. have done a sort of country
version of it, but they've changed the chords slightly. And that had
wine glasses on it -- it has Andy playing wine glasses. We actually
had a bunch of wine glasses on the BBC Mobile, 'coz we recorded it on
the BBC Mobile, and the BBC came in and put the mikes on the kitchen
table, like we have here. And Andy just put his moistened finger around
the circles of each wine glass top. That's what that sound is, anyway,
at the beginning. The best thing about it is that as I was writing it,
I suddenly realized that I didn't have to spend as long getting from
one chord to another as I thought. It would been a really slow, sort of
waltz thing, but in fact I've managed to skip from one chord to another
quite fast, so it's quite a concise tune. I mean, I like the tune. And
the good thing about it is it hasn't good very many words, and I keep
forgetting them, and I always change them each time I sing it. I changed
it from the 'Arms of God' because that was too much like being about to
be dead. But the idea is that the two people in the song are separated,
and soon they will be in the arms of love. But will it be in each
other's arms? 'Don't worry, honey. You'll soon be... back with me?
back with somebody else? what?' You don't know, so it could be
ultimate reassurance, and it could be your worst fears being confirmed.
Either way it'll be quite exciting and probably rather sad. Well, it
wouldn't be sad if you got back together again."