March 12, 2021 – CountUp

Every Friday I post the Top 5 of one of my classic hit music charts based on personal preference and influenced by radio airplay from either 15, 25, 30, or 35 years ago this weekend (rotating each week).

It’s the 2ND Friday of the month, so I go back 25 years ago. Here it is – for the week ending Sunday March 10TH 1996:

“You Oughta Know” – Alanis Morissette
“The World I Know” – Collective Soul
“Close To You” – Fun Factory
“When I Come Around” – Green Day
“One Of Us” – Joan Osborne

Joan Osborne scored her first and only hit here stateside with the somewhat Christian track “One Of Us”. It was released early on in 1995, and it took nearly a year to build and emerge as a worldwide multi-format smash into 1996. On my chart it spent 23 weeks in my Top 20, and it was my # 7 hit overall in 1996.

Now obviously I didn’t understand the song back in 1996 when I was a 28 / 29-year-old of the world, but I knew it was about God because of its prominent lyrics that were easy to sing along to:

♫ If God had a name what would it be ?
And would you call it to His face ?
If you were faced with Him in all His glory
What would you ask if you had just one question ?

And yeah – yeah – God is great
Yeah – yeah – God is good
And yeah – yeah – yeah – yeah – yeah

What if God was one of us ?
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Tryin’ to make His way home ♫

Eric Bazilian – one of the founding members of the longtime band The Hooters wrote the song. It’s often ranked as one of the greatest songs of the 1990s. It was nominated for several Grammy Awards including Record Of The Year and Song Of The Year. It lost in both categories to “Kiss From A Rose” from Seal.

Here’s the official music video for “One Of Us”. You can watch it here, or link here on YouTube.

Next Friday on RETRO I’ll go back 30 years ago to March 1991. Post-Desert Storm I’m back home stateside, and the American pop charts are heating-up !

It’s halftime my friends. I’ll be back on Sunday and Monday with 2 more blog posts for this weekend. Enjoy your Saturday. Thanks for going RETRO with me !