Patti Smith recorded this collaborative track with the American string ensemble Kronos Quartet and Clint Mansell for the soundtrack of the Darren Aronofsky movie Noah. Smith had approached the director asking if she could write the lullaby that was referenced in the script and this was the result.
Frequent Aronofsky collaborator Mansell, who scored the entire soundtrack, said: "My orchestrator Matt Dunkley and I arranged the music which we roughly laid out alongside Patti's demo, and then we had Kronos and Patti play together in the studio, so it was all done in quite an old school way. This process allowed Patti and Kronos to really express themselves and really find their performance."
Patti Smith (from NME): "Darren told me how he wanted a lullaby for Noah to sing to a child. The idea of the song is mercy as a healing wind."
This is sung by both Noah and his stepdaughter in the movie. Patti Smith then performs the song over the end credits. "I thought Darren (Aronofsky) would want me to deliver it more like a heavy metal ballad," said Smith. "But he wanted it to maintain its integrity as a lullaby. Even when I sang it with Kronos Quartet, I was still delivering it a little more aria-like, and he asked me if I could step back a bit with it."
