Joan Osborne- One Of Us (Incomplete)

• Report rights infringement
• published: 11 Apr 2012
• views: 3132

Joan Osborne sings One Of Us (Live at the Lincoln Theatre in Raleigh, NC) From Wikipedia: "One of Us" is a song written by Eric Bazilian (of The Hooters) and originally released by Joan Osborne. Released in March 1995 on the album Relish and produced by Rick Chertoff, it became a top 40 hit in November of that year. Bazilian discussed the song in an interview, saying "I wrote that song one night — the quickest song I ever wrote — to impress a girl. Which worked, because we're married and have two kids. But we were in the middle of writing Joan's album, which was a group effort with Rick Chertoff and Joan and Rob and I, and I did a demo of "One of Us," this wacky little demo which I ended up putting as a hidden track on the CD of my first solo record, and I played [it] for them. And it really hadn't even occurred to me that it was something that Joan might do, but Rick, in his wisdom, asked Joan if she thought she could sing it. And I think it was better that he asked it that way rather than "Do you want to sing it?" Because the answer to that might not have been yes. But she definitely said she could sing it, and we did a little live demo of a guitar and her singing it. And when I got into my car and popped the cassette in, I started practicing the Grammy speech that I should've gotten to give." The song deals with various aspects of belief in God by asking questions inviting the listener to consider how they might relate to God, such as "Would you call [God's name] to his face?" or "Would you want to see [God's face] if seeing meant that you would have to believe in things like heaven and in Jesus and the saints and all the prophets?" The title of the song comes from the refrain, "What if God was one of us?" The album version starts off with four lines from a Gospel music song "The Heavenly Aeroplane": Oh, one of these nights at about twelve o'clock This whole earth is gonna reel and rock Saints will tremble and cry for pain For the Lord's gonna come in his heaven airplane. The music video was directed by Mark Seliger and Fred Woodward, and was mainly shot on Coney Island, with various attractions like rollercoasters, ferris wheels and the New York Aquarium shown, interchanged with the vintage-looking shots in sepia and Joan singing in front of the camera. Roch Parisien called the song "a simple, direct statement of faith, honest and unadorned, one framed in a near-perfect chorus and delectable Neil Young-ish guitar riff." In 2007, the song was ranked at #54 on "VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of the 90's". Lyrics: If God had a name what would it be? And would you call it to His face? If you were faced with Him in all His glory What would you ask if you had just one question? And yeah, yeah God is great Yeah, yeah God is good Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us Just a stranger on the bus Trying to make His way home If God had a face what would it look like? And would you want to see? If seeing meant that you would have to believe In things like Heaven and in Jesus and the Saints And all the Prophets And yeah, yeah God is great Yeah, yeah God is good Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us Just a stranger on the bus Trying to make His way home Tryin' to make His way home Back up to Heaven all alone Nobody callin' on the phone 'Cept for the Pope maybe in Rome Yeah, yeah God is great Yeah, yeah God is good Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us Just a stranger on the bus Trying to make His way home Just tryin' to make His way home Like a holy rolling stone Back up to Heaven all alone Just tryin' to make His way home Nobody callin' on the phone 'Cept for the Pope maybe in Rome