Joan_osborne_one_of_us

Written by Eric Bazilian (guitarist for The Hooters), who composed it in a single night to impress his girlfriend (who later became his wife).

Osborne approached the vocals with a "childlike innocence," reflecting the simplicity of the central question: "What if God was one of us?".

The album version opens with a 1930s gospel snippet of Nell Hampton singing "Heaven's Airplane," a suggestion from Chertoff to ground the track in American folk tradition. Themes and Meaning