A play-along guitar lesson by Lauren Bateman for Joan Osborne’s “What If God Was One Of Us.” The video provides chord progressions (primarily Em–C–G–D with occasional Cmaj7), capo placement (2nd fret), simple and more advanced strumming patterns, and two run-throughs for practice: a basic slow pass and a slightly faster embellished pass. The focus is on playing along rather than a full tutorial; a separate full lesson is linked elsewhere.
Chapters
What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us.
Just a stranger on the bus Trying to make his way home.
Hey everybody, welcome back. Lauren Bateman here. And this is a play along song that we're gonna do. And this is Joan Osborne's what if God Was One of Us. Really, really great song. Uses the four easy chords. If you've seen that video of mine, the four easiest chords, you can use that on this song. Basically four chords, E minor, C, G and D. Every once in a while there's a C major seven that pops up which also happily is a two finger chord. It looks like this. It's basically a C chord with the first finger up. But if you don't know a full C chord, don't worry. If you don't want to learn C major 7, don't worry about it. This song is not about teaching you how to play the song, but playing along with me to the song. So if you want to learn more about the actual song, you can go to the actual song lesson. I'll put a link below this video. So go to my website, laurenbateman.com download and print out or just print out the chord chart so that you can have the lyrics just like I have them here in front of me. So the chord progressions for this song is fairly simple. Most of it is E minor, C, G, D over and over and over again. The only part where it changes is the pre chorus where we get C and then G D. So it kind of changes up a little bit on the chorus. But the majority of the song, which makes it a great beginner song, is the same four chords over and over again. E minor, C, G and D. And all these chords are splitting a measure so they're two beats each. So when I do these playing longs is the first time through, we keep it simple. I don't do anything crazy or fancy. The second time I do it a little bit more up to speed. This is a slower song so I'll slow it down a little bit. But it's not gonna be that much slower than the full speed. But the second time through I'll go in and put some little embellishments in to make it sound cool. So that give you some ideas of what it could sound like. So easier strumming, I would just do two downs and then up, down, down.
Up, down, down, up, down, down, up.
And that's all we're gonna do for this first time through. So the intro repeats eight times. I'm just gonna do it once. I'm just gonna do one intro in so that we can just get right into it. All right, so we got. Or maybe I'll do two. This way you can get your. Your timing in your strumming down with me. So we got 1, 2, 3, 4.
Don't forget, we have a capo here on the second fret.
Down, up, down, down, up, down, down. If God had a name.
What would it be? And would you call it to his face?
If you would face with him and all his glory.
What would you ask if you had just one question.
Yeah, yeah, God is great and yeah, yeah God is good and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah what if that was one of us.
Just a slab like one of us.
Just a stranger on the bus Trying to make his way home.
If God had a face.
What would it look like? And would you want to see.
If sin meant that you would have to believe.
In things like heaven and Jesus and the saints and all the prophets and yeah, yeah.
God is great and yeah, yeah.
God is good and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah what if God was one of us.
Just a slab like one of us.
Just a stranger on the bus he's trying to make his way home.
He'S trying to make his way home.
Back up to heaven all alone.
Nobody's calling on the phone.
Except for the pop may be in wrong.
We have our little solo coming up.
There's the pre chorus again.
And yeah, yeah God is great and 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 Trying to make his way home.
Like a holy rolling stone.
Just trying to make his way home.
Nobody's calling on the phone.
Except Father Pope maybe in Rome.
And there you have it. That is Joan Osborne's wood. God was one of us. If the up strum is a little bit too much for you, you can just do two down strums per chord. That simplifies it even more. Or even if that's too much, just do one strum per chord. So this next time through, I'm gonna play it a little bit faster. Not much faster because the song's not super peppy, but I'm gonna throw in some kind of 16th note strumming, which would be more like down, down, down.
Down, down, 1, 2 and a 3, 4.
So. And you can see I'm going to do a little bit of some flourishes and some cool things on the D chord, but same thing. I'm Just going to do an intro. We'll go through the progression twice so that we can get into the song faster. But just try and keep up with me. If you can't do the 15, the 16th note string pattern, not a big deal. If 16th note strumming gives you an issue, you can always check out my course, my online guitar course. I do a lot of 16th note strumming in there as well as some palm muting stuff. Kind of a little bit more intermediate strumming things if you're having difficulty with this stuff. So let's start off with the intro. Two progressions through and I'm going to go right into the song. So we got 1, 2, 3, 4.
Down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down down down down, down down down down, down, down, down. Here we go. You got a name.
What would it be? And would you call it to space.
With him?
What would you ask if you had just one question?
Yeah, yeah God is great and yeah yeah God is good and yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah what if God was one of us?
Love like one of us.
Is a.
Stranger on the bus Trying to make his way home.
God had a face.
What would it look like and would you want to see?
It seemed meant that you would have to believe.
In things like heaven and Jesus and the saints and all prompt is in yeah, yeah God is good.
Again.
God is great and yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah what if God God was one of us.
He's a slob like one of us.
Is a stranger on the bus Trying to make his way home.
He'S trying to make his way home.
Back up to heaven on alone.
No.
Yeah, yeah God is great and yeah yeah, yeah God is good and yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah what if God was one of us?
Just this love night One of us.
Is a stranger on the bus Trying to make his way Homeland only rolling stone.
Just trying to make his way.
Home.
Nobody's coming calling on the phone.
And there you have it. I timed the ending a little bit different. I actually think I timed the ending better with the words on that one. But anywho, see, even I'm flexible. But there you go. That is one of God was one of us. You saw I did some kind of like I had some bills all down strums with building the volume. I added a lot more dynamics. And I really think that's what separates, you know, an intermediate player for someone who's been playing the guitar for a lot longer is the dynamics and the playing and the ability to change the moods. Of the guitar as you're going through a song. So it's not all just one level. It's kind of ups and downs and hills and valleys. Makes for a more dynamic landscape. Gave so there you go. If you guys enjoyed this lesson, feel free to go to my website laurenbate.com backslash donate. You can always make a donation. I really appreciate it when you guys do that. And if you do make a donation, I do try to reply to all the emails I get to say hi and to say thank you because I do appreciate you guys. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel and I'll see you guys in the next lesson.
