Laughing At

This song has been on my ipod for FOREVER.  It's called Laughing With by Regina Spektor.  Once it's in your head, it's hard to get out.  In fact, it's gotten to the point where Jenn will be like "Stop humming that song!"  Recently I had to write a paper on a song of my choice for my English class.  At first, I thought, "How am I going to choose a song out of ALL the songs there are?"  So I got out my ipod and started shuffling, and this is the one I ended up choosing. 

To be honest, I'd never really thought about the lyrics before, and when I finally did, I was sort of confused.  In the verses of the song, she sings about how people don’t laugh at God in the midst of their troubles.  She gives different examples of hardships, like, “No one laughs at God in a hospital, No one laughs at God in a war, No one’s laughing at God, When they’re starving or freezing or so very poor.”

In the chorus, she tells about how God can be "funny" or is "made fun of" when people are happy or doing okay.  She sings, “God can be funny, At a cocktail party while listening to a good God-themed joke or, When the crazies say he hates us, and they get so red in the head, you think that they’re about to choke. God can be funny, When told he’ll give you money if you just pray the right way, And when presented like a genie, Who does magic like Houdini, or grants wishes like Jiminy Cricket and Santa Claus.”

In essence, the song is about hypocrisy.  Why do people mock the thought of God when they feel like they don’t need Him, and then pray to God desperately for help when things get out of control?  Regina asks her listeners a question... Do you really believe God is out there?  If you do, then act like it all the time and don't mock the existence of God when you "feel like don't need Him."  If you don’t, then why don't think about God when tragedy strikes?  If He doesn't exist when life is good, then He won't exist when life is bad.  In essense, I think the song tells us to either take God seriously or give up the idea of God altogether.

At the end of the song, it says, “No one’s laughing at God, We’re all laughing with God.”  This struck me, and it gives the song a whole new meaning. The song is called Laughing With because of the last line.  But I think the song should be more appropriately called Laughing At.  I also thought it was interesting how the name God is mentioned over thirty times throughout the song, but the word God is not in the title.  Maybe no one would have listened to a song titled Laughing At God, but in truth, that exactly what this song is about.

But what does Regina mean by laughing with God?  Laugh because we know everything will turn out okay?  Laugh because the world is going to end someday and nothing on earth will "really matter?"  Laugh because once we die, we're DEAD, and there's nothing really we need to live for?  It's almost like God's just up there laughing at our short, petty little lives, and then we all realize it's all just a big joke.  For me, this last line is the most puzzling and thought provoking part of the song.  What is Regina trying to say?

I think there are many ways to interpret the ending of the song, but this is how I look at it.  We'll laugh with God is heaven.  We'll laugh when we see our sorrows turned into joys.  We'll laugh when we hear music instead of crying.  We'll laugh when we see good come out of bad.  That's when true happiness will come -- not when we think we have life figured out and not when we think we're okay on our own -- when we realize that God had it all planned out the whole time.

Listen.