<Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> <Ul> <Li> file </Li> <Li> help </Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> <Ul> <Li> file </Li> <Li> help </Li> </Ul> <P> "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 . The song is the theme song for the American television series Joan of Arcadia . The song was nominated for three Grammys and peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 . The song samples "In My Life" by The Beatles . </P> <P> In an interview, Bazilian said, "I wrote (' One of Us') 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 ." </P>

Who wrote the song what if god was one of us