From Musician Magazine, May, 1996:

HOW I WROTE THAT HIT SONG
Joan Osborne's "One of Us" by Eric Bazilian

Eric Bazilian of the Hooters has just received the news that his song "One 
of Us," a current smash for Joan Osborne, was played on the radio by Rush 
Limbaugh, who said that the country is not going down the tubes if songs 
like this are being written.  "It's a dubious honor," says Bazilian over the 
phone from his native Philly, where he's about to board a plane to celebrate 
Christmas in Sweden with his wife and her family.  Before flying off, he 
took a few moments to discuss the origins of this song, about which much of 
the world - even Rush - is talking.

	One night, my wife and I had just seen The Making of Sgt. Pepper, 
and she was intrigued by the multitrack recording process.  She wanted me to 
record something for her on my four-track (Tascam) Portastudio, but I didn't 
have anything new, so she said, "Write something."  I had this electric 
guitar riff that I had been messing around with, so I sat down with my 
little sequencer and did a bass, drums, guitar and electric piano sequence. 
 I literally doubled the guitar line, which on Joan Osborne's record I did 
with a Wurlitzer.

	So I put down this track, complete with an "I Am the Walrus" middle 
section, which we didn't do on Joan's record.  It was just an instrumental, 
but Sarah, my wife, said, "Sing it."  I said, "What do you mean?  I haven't 
written lyrics yet, and when you write lyrics you still have to rewrite 
them, and then everyone in the committee has to approve them."  She said, 
"Okay, cool," and went to lie down on the couch.

	Right then, I heard the voice.  The voice sounded very much like 
Brad Roberts of Crash Test Dummies.  It was going "If God has a name..."  I 
thought, "Okay, I'll go with that," and I put the machine into record and 
started singing.  The verses all came out in one take, totally stream of 
consciousness, in a sort of Leonard Cohenish, dark, benevolent sarcasm.  
Joan sang it in a much more childlike, questioning way.

	On the second pass, the chorus lyrics came out, and that was 
basically it.  I doubled the vocal an octave higher, brought it in the next 
day, and played it for the assembled multitudes, really just for 
entertainment purposes.  [Producer} Rick Shertoff [sic] ** looked up 
afterwards and said  "Joan, do you think you could sing that?"  I never 
thought it was a song for Joan.

	Some people have taken exception to the concept of comparing God to 
a human.  What I say to them is that I'm not comparing God to humans; I'm 
comparing humans to God.  I've always wondered:  If I saw a miracle, would 
that mean I would have to believe all of it, the whole story about Jesus and 
the saints and the prophets?  I'm not that religious, but this has given my 
little latent faith gland some stimulation.  I was raised Jewish, went to 
Quaker schools.  I have a respect for all religions but no respect for 
intolerance - or for any religion that doesn't tolerate other religions.

NOTE: Accompanying photo is erroneously captioned:  "Bazilian and Osborne 
consult the muse.".  [Actually the photo shows Joan and her touring band 
guitarist, Jack Petrozzelli].

** the correct spelling is Rick CHERTOFF