Laughing With

This spiritual plea was the lead single from Jewish-American singer songwriter Regina Spektor's fifth studio album Far.

This song is one of several on Far containing religious imagery. Spektor told Spin magazine: "I'm always fascinated with faith, religion, and spirituality, and what those things are to each other, or how they come together or don't come together. When I was done with this record I was like, 'Whoa, I have a lot of stuff here that's just about, like, religion.' Which is amazing. It wasn't planned, but it's one of those concepts that my mind is just fascinated with, and I'm always mulling over. Sometimes I'm really positive about religion, but, you know, sometimes I'm really sarcastic about it, too. Hey, that's God, that's life."

Spektor said in publicity materials that she arranged strings for this song, "but instead of a traditional quartet we had two cellos. I'm drawn to that, the lower sounds - bass, cello, tuba, that warm bottomy sound."

Some of the songs on Far, such as this one, existed for several years before Spektor recorded the album. She decided that now was as good a time as any to release them onto the world. The Russian born singer-songwriter said to BBC News: "I always feel some sort of relief when I record one of the older songs because I'm like, 'oh, you've been patiently waiting your turn."