One of us - Joan Osborne

A Christian is bound to be nervous at Joan Osborne's 1995 song written by Eric Bazilian of The Hooters (who has also recorded the song). What are they actually up to? Is this mockery or an attempt at profound comment? Things like And yeah, yeah, God is great Yeah, yeah, God is good are right enough but the following Yeah, yeah, yeah-yeah-yeah sounds dismissive. The idea of God being "like one of us" raises the subject of the incarnation but Jesus was never a slob like one of us. Though like us, he was perfect. The question of whether God has a face and what it would look like raises the matter of his transcendence. How many would want to see it if they had to believe in things like heaven and in Jesus and the saints and all the prophets. Shying away from being too honest the song resorts to a feeble joke about the Pope maybe in Rome. The ideas in the song perhaps reflect a Roman Catholic background. The album version starts off with the first four lines of a recording titled "The aeroplane ride" made on October 27, 1937 by American folklorist Alan Lomax and his wife Elizabeth. The singer is Mrs Nell Hampton from Kentucky. It is a variation of the 1928 John S. McConnell hymn "Heavenly Aeroplane". The song One if s has been very popular. Whatever it's purpose, it is very refreshing to hear someone singing about God for a change.