The music video for "One of Us" was directed by Mark Seliger and Fred Woodward, and filmed in Coney Island, New York City.

He invited her to Philadelphia when he was making Joan Osborne's album Relish together with Rob Hyman and Rick Chertoff.

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 for the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress, with Mrs. Nell Hampton of Salyersville, Kentucky, singing a variation of the 1928 John S. McConnell hymn "Heavenly Aeroplane".

[6][7] Roch Parisien from AllMusic named 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".

[8] Melody Maker wrote, "For appalling lyrics combined with enormous success though, no one could touch God-botherer Joan Osborne.

Check out these lines from her extraordinary 'One of Us'—What if God were one of us/Just a slob like one of us/Just a stranger on the bus/Trying to make his way home/Like a holy rolling stone/Nobody calling on the phone/'Cept for the Pope, maybe, in Rome.

"[9] Alan Jones from Music Week commented, "Joan Osborne has come up with a delicious debut single 'One of Us' – an electrically charged and retro-styled song with an intimate vocal.

The track addresses the question 'What if God was one of us?, just a slob like one of us' placing him on the bus and taking phone calls from the Pope, doing so with humour, energy and a great tune, in a taut clutter-free production.