By 1983, the founder of the 4AD label, Ivo Watts-Russell had carved a reputation for releasing darkly gripping post-punk by the likes of Bauhaus, the Birthday Party, Modern English and Cocteau Twins. Feeling creative himself, Ivo decided to cherrypick various 4AD band members to record a one-off single, Sixteen Days/Gathering Dust, written by Modern English, sung by the Cocteaus' Elizabeth Fraser and released under the name This Mortal Coil. But Watts-Russell needed a B-side and so he asked Fraser to cover his ultimate desert-island disc, Tim Buckley's Song to the Siren.
—Ulf Kjell Gür