Ben Hillier described the recording of song to HOME:

The two [songs on ‘Playing The Angel’] that are closest to the demos are “Precious” and “Macro”. Those two are pretty close to the demos. Apart from that, everything else kinda changed quite a lot really. I mean, both of those demos were absolutely excellent, especially “Precious”, I thought that was really good but it just needed to have a bit more dynamic and sort of drive to it.

Lead singer and songwriter Martin Gore told French reporter Shana de Lacroix:

‘Precious’ in particular, for me, is a song about my children, because I’m in the middle of a divorce at the moment, and what they must be going through. [The song] sounds a bit country, but obviously it’s not done in a country style. The music behind it is fairly upbeat.

He also told German newspaper NetZeitung.de:

Well, my private life is pretty crappy. I’m about to divorce my wife, the situation has been going on for sixteen months. My life is certainly not a walk in the park. I also have three children. And ‘Precious’, the single, is a song that describes exactly this situation. But there are other divorce songs on ‘Playing The Angel’. ‘Precious’ is about how my children cope with the divorce – which isn’t very well. But the song ends with the verse “I know you learned to trust / keep faith in both of us”. All of our songs, even the most depressive ones, contain hope.