Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds' sixteenth studio album, Skeleton Tree, was created in the midst of Nick Cave's mourning for his teenage son, Arthur. The 15-year-old died after falling off a seaside cliff in Brighton, England, in the summer of 2015. In a news article, he and his wife, Susie Bick, referred to their late son as a "beautiful, happy, loving boy."

The album follows the Bad Seeds' most critically and commercially successful release of recent times, Push the Sky Away ( 2013 ). Skeleton Tree began its journey in late 2014 at Retreat Studios, Brighton, with further sessions at La Frette Studios, France in autumn 2015. The album was mixed at AIR Studios, London in early 2016.

The Australian post-punk outfit will debut the entire album in a feature film called One More Time with Feeling. Rolling Stonestated: "The project began as a performance-based piece and evolved into a documentary-type project that explored the 'tragic backdrop of the writing and recording of the album' concerning the loss of Cave's teenage son in July 2015."