Songfacts®:

• This plea for reparation is one of four tracks on Old Ideas that Cohen co-wrote with Patrick Leonard. The American songwriter-producer is best known for co-penning many of Madonna's late '80s hits including "Live to Tell"and "Like A Prayer."
• The song finds Cohen asking that the heavens hear this "penitential hymn." "I'm not sure what this means," said the singer-poet during a press preview in London (as reported by The Sun). "Is the penitence appropriate to God or man? I mean who is to blame for this catastrophe?"
• The female vocalist who opens the song is Dana Glover who is best known for performing film songs such as the duet "Plan On Forever" for The Wedding Planner and "The Way (Radio Song)" for Two Weeks Notice.
• Patrick Leonard knew immediately what to do with Cohen's lyrics for this song. He recalled to Uncut: "Old Ideas we were never really in a studio. We hang out as we work, just me and him at his house, so it's always relaxed. And the way the record sounds is a reflection of how it was done."
  
  "The moments when he hands me Old Ideas' 'Come Healing' in the kitchen and recites it for me, and I go across to the studio and I don't even sit down, as I already know what it is. That song feels like it should be in church somewhere and I've written the music in three minutes. Because the lyrics and intent are so rich. It's in there already."