Joan Osborne got famous for 'One of Us' — but finding her own voice took decades

Sophie Bearman [00:00:02] Hey guys, this is Sophie, host of Life in Seven Songs. We are putting together a bonus episode built around your songs and your stories. We wanna know what songs shaped you. Choose one song that's had a major impact on you, record yourself talking about it in a voice memo, and email us that audio clip at lifeinsevensongs@sfstandard.com. We've already got some great submissions, but keep them coming. And with that, enjoy the listen. 

Joan Osborne [00:00:32] I'm not worried so much about, 'Is somebody gonna like this? Am I exposing too much of myself?' I am who I am, I'm doing what I'm doing, if you're on board that's great, and if you are not, that's fine too. 

Sophie Bearman [00:00:55] This is Life in Seven Songs. From the San Francisco Standard, I'm Sophie Bearman. This week, Joan Osborne shares her seven songs. You know her from her hit single, One of Us. The song was everywhere in the 90s. It reached the Top 10 and helped Joan's debut album, Relish, earn seven Grammy nominations. Joan's now in her early sixties and has gone on to release eleven more albums. But the story that her list of seven songs tells is really one about finding her own voice. She didn't write One of Us, and she first started performing singing covers. Her latest album, entitled Nobody Owns You, might give you a clue into how she's feeling these days. Joan Osborne, welcome to the show. 

Joan Osborne [00:01:46] Hi, Sophie, how are you? 

Sophie Bearman [00:01:48] I'm good, thanks for joining us. 

Joan Osborne [00:01:49] My pleasure. 

Sophie Bearman [00:01:50] I have to tell you, I re-watched the One of Us music video. It's so iconic with the close-up of your face, but I have to ask, is it true the nose ring wasn't actually real?

Joan Osborne [00:02:01] So the story about the nose ring is that when I was at the video shoot backstage, there were all these jewels and things out on the countertop of things that I might want to wear in the video. So I picked up one of these clip-on nose rings and tried it on and looked at myself in the mirror. I was like, 'This is cool.' I think I felt like my image was sort of like vanilla and I wanted to spice it up a little bit and be a little more like a rock chic. And so I wore this fake nose ring for the video which of course turned out to be, it's like this super close up of my face, a lot of it. And so the nose ring is very visible and it became this thing that I was associated with. And I looked at the video afterwards and I was like, 'Oh my God, I'm gonna look like such a poser the minute people find out this is not real.' So the next day I went out and got a real piercing and a real nose ring. 

Sophie Bearman [00:02:51] So this is not on your list of seven songs, but let's listen to a little bit of One of Us. 

Music [00:02:56] [One of Us by Joan Osborne plays]

Sophie Bearman [00:03:08] So Joan, the first question that comes up in a Google search about you is, 'Is Joan Osborne religious?' Clearly because your most popular song is about God, and I know you didn't even write that song, but was religion a part of your life growing up? 

Joan Osborne [00:03:22] Yeah, when I was a young child, my family was Catholic and I used to go to church and Sunday school. Up until the time that I was about eight years old or so, in fact, I wanted to be a priest, just being up in the pulpit and wearing the robes and the ritualistic thing of it, where everybody's looking up at you and you're leading the congregation. That was attractive to me. But then I, you know, people said, 'Oh no, you can't be a priest because you're a girl. You have to be a nun.' And I looked over at the nuns wearing all black and very servile and I was like, 'I don't want to do that. That's not fair. I know that I'm just as smart, if not smarter than my brothers.' And I think that might have been the dawning of a feminist consciousness. 

Sophie Bearman [00:04:07] How'd you feel about the song when you first heard it? You know, thinking about the religious aspect. 

Joan Osborne [00:04:11] Well, the first time that I heard What If God Was One Of Us was in the recording studio, and the writer, Eric Bazilian, had brought it in and said, 'Oh, I got up in the middle of the night and I wrote this song, and I'm going to send it to the Crash Test Dummies,' that guy with the really low voice, that Canadian band. And he played us this demo of the song where he was singing it in this very sort of low, dirge-y voice. So that's the first time I heard the song. Then the producer, Rick Chertoff, said, 'No, you are not going to send that song to the Crash Test Dummies. That's a hit song and you're going to let Joan sing that.' And I was like, 'No, no, no, it's his song. Let him do what he wants to do with it.' But Rick was very insistent. So that's when I really paid closer attention to the song and the lyric, 'What if God was one of us?' It's sort of one of those questions that a little child will come up and ask you and that you don't have a ready answer for. You know, this was years later, but when my daughter was very small, she turned to me one day and she said, 'Mommy, when did time start?' 

Sophie Bearman [00:05:16] Hm, hm, hm... Yeah.

Joan Osborne [00:05:16] You know, kids at that age are trying to figure out everything about the world. It struck me as that kind of a thing. So I tried to give it that sort of innocent quality. Not that I was imitating a child's voice, but because I thought that was what felt to me as a true way to ask that question. 

Sophie Bearman [00:05:35] Oh, that's so interesting. And I suppose there were people, though, that took it much more literally. I mean, didn't you get death threats related to the song? 

Joan Osborne [00:05:43] I did, yeah. I was very outspoken in the press about being pro-choice, and I think that sort of blew some people's minds that I was singing a song which they considered a religious song, and yet I was espousing this humanist viewpoint that women should have the right to choose what happens with their own bodies. And so certain Catholic groups picketed my concerts and gave interviews to the press saying bad things about me. And I also got a lot of letters from congregations and people of faith and priests and all that saying 'We love your song and it's a great way for us to connect with the younger members of our congregation and we discussed it in our Bible studies group and this and that.' So I think that's one of the cool things about the song is that it's a pop song, but it's about these deeper spiritual matters and it's not telling you what you're supposed to think. It's asking you to ask yourself, 'Why.' But yeah, it upsets some people and I did get death threats. Back then, they came in the mail. So, um, but I, I didn't take it all that seriously because I figured probably somebody is like living in their mom's basement watching too much MTV and decided that they don't like me and I don't feel like it was enough of a risk that I was going to start canceling shows or anything like that. 

Sophie Bearman [00:07:03] So before you had this hit song, what are some of your earliest memories of singing? 

Joan Osborne [00:07:08] I grew up in Kentucky and we lived next to a horse trail and I used to walk up horse trail to the woods and... I would stop and listen and you would hear these birds having a conversation back and forth. And then I would voice my little version of that. And that's the first time that I remember, you know, singing, if you can call it that. And we sang in church. I remember standing next to my father and hearing his voice and just being sort of filled up with how resonant it was and how powerful it was. And, you know, both of my parents had beautiful singing voices. They met singing in a church choir. 

Sophie Bearman [00:07:44] Oh, wow. 

Joan Osborne [00:07:44] And whatever aptitude for performance that I have probably comes from my mom because she — you know, she'd be vacuuming the carpet and burst into like the Chiquita Banana song or something from a Broadway musical and, of course, when we were little kids, we loved this. You know, when we got older, we were like, 'Oh my God, this is so embarrassing.' But then, you know, we would ask her to stop and she would just sing louder. 

Sophie Bearman [00:08:07] So one of the first songs you chose is from the Sound of Music soundtrack, So Long, Farewell. What's the story behind that pick? 

Joan Osborne [00:08:16] My parents used to have this big console stereo, and this was back in the 1960s when the stereo wasn't just this little bitty thing. It was like a giant piece of furniture and there was a speaker on one side of it. And there was space between that speaker and an adjacent wall. So I would be able to sit next to that speaker and open that cabinet door in such a way that it made this little box that I could sit in. And so I felt very, sort of, hidden. And yet I was sitting right next to the speaker of the console stereo, so it was right in my ear. And I would play that record of the Sound of Music over and over and again, and pick a different character to be and sing along with their part. So, I mean, I would do this like for hours and hours at a time. And I'm sure my family was like, 'Oh my God, enough of this.' 

Music [00:09:04] [So Long, Farewell by the cast of The Sound of Music plays]

Joan Osborne [00:09:13] I would sing that part, too. 

Music [00:09:16] [So Long, Farewell by the cast of The Sound of Music plays]

Joan Osborne [00:09:25] Oh my god. I do this at karaoke sometimes, too. 

Sophie Bearman [00:09:29] Oh, still?

Joan Osborne [00:09:30] Yes. 

Sophie Bearman [00:09:32] That's awesome. So tell me more about what you were like as a child. Were you somewhat internal or were you also out playing with other kids? What were you like? 

Joan Osborne [00:09:40] Yeah, I think I was a very dreamy child. I do come from a big family. I have five brothers and sisters, and I'm the oldest girl in the family. So I was sort of like Mom Jr., changing diapers and making lunches and breaking up fights. And so I think had this sort of dual nature of engaged with the family and being very much part of it. And then also just having a lot of imaginings and reading a lot and drawing a lot and... in a way, I feel like it was probably great training for being in a band because in certain instances, you are sort of like a den mother to the musicians that you're working with. And then also just to have that sort of dreamy nature of someone who's able to follow their thoughts and their imaginings enough to, you know, write songs and be an artist. 

Sophie Bearman [00:10:28] So you mentioned singing in the choir, and you chose the Oxford Trinity Choir, I Saw Three Ships. Tell me about this memory, this song. 

Joan Osborne [00:10:37] Yeah, well, when I was twelve, thirteen, fourteen as a tween, I was in the choir and there was a general choir in the smaller group, the Madrigal Singers. And especially at the holidays, we would learn these five and six and seven part harmonies on these Old English Madrigals carols. And a lot of the songs had lyrics that I didn't totally understand, but I think that kind of added to the mysterious quality of it. And for me, as this somewhat outcast, not popular kid, it was a bit of a haven to be able to go into that choir room standing next to the very popular girls. And it wasn't that it made me popular, but at least I had a place that I knew that I could succeed at and that I was respected in. It was a great experience for me in many, many ways. 

Music [00:11:27] [I Saw Three Ships by the Oxford Trinity Choir plays]

Joan Osborne [00:11:37] I would be the person singing that super high note. I'm not going to sing it for you right now because I was twelve at the time and I don't know that I can do that anymore. But yeah, that would be me was in the section with the super high sopranos. We flew to Colonial Williamsburg — first time I was ever in an airplane — and we would sing as part of some sort of performance in a church or in a street corner or something in the Christmas season. And we were dressed up in these Elizabethan costumes that my mom sewed for me, and I had three brothers who were also in this choir too, and they would wear like tights and poofy little shorts and stuff. It was a thing. 

Sophie Bearman [00:12:16] Incredible. Joan, I think you mentioned you were kind of a nerdy kid. So I'm curious, what were your teenage years like? 

Joan Osborne [00:12:22] I went to a bigger school when I was a teenager and fell in with these nerdy guys. And we would ride around at night. I would sneak out of the house and get picked up by one of my nerdy friends in his car listening to Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon and go to the midnight movies. And I dated this one guy who was a drummer and they were doing like a Battle of the Bands competition and they wanted me to sing a Stevie Nicks song. But then we didn't win the competition and then they fired me from the band cause I think the bass player didn't like me or something. So that was the extent of my singing in high school. 

Sophie Bearman [00:12:56] Short — short-lived. 

Joan Osborne [00:12:58] Yeah. 

Sophie Bearman [00:12:59] When do you think you figured out that you wanted to be a musician? Was it around this time or — or later? 

Joan Osborne [00:13:04] Oh, no, it was much, much later. First, I went to college at the University of Louisville, and then I transferred to NYU because I wanted to go learn about making films. I thought I was going to become maybe a documentary filmmaker, but I sort of accidentally got dared to sing in a blues bar. A guy in my building asked me out for a drink — a very, very handsome guy — and I was like, 'Okay, sure.' So we went out for drink to the first bar that was on the corner, and it happened to be a blues bar. And this guy dared me to go up and sing a song with the piano player — there was maybe 20 people in the bar still — and went up and asked the piano player, you know, 'Would you mind if I sing a songs with you?' And then we both knew this Billie Holiday song, God Bless the Child, and that was the first time that I sang in New York. 

Sophie Bearman [00:13:54] This song was the beginning. Let's listen to it. 

Music [00:13:58] [God Bless the Child by Billie Holiday plays]

Joan Osborne [00:14:16] I'm not going to sing while she's singing, that's for sure. Let's just listen to her. Ugh. She's one of my favorite singers in the world and when I was about seventeen, I went to the public library to check out some music and brought home some of her cassettes and was listening to them. And it — I think it took me a minute because her voice is so otherworldly and so unusual and her phrasing is so unusual. It wasn't like anyone that I had ever heard before. So it took me a minute to really understand her greatness and to really, I think, allow myself to get into it. But once I did, I was totally hypnotized by her and still am, you know, I still am. There's certain artists who are the sort of North Star — people like Etta James, people like Mavis Staples, people like Otis Redding — and I would try to emulate them. I could never really emulate Billie Holiday, but there's something about her that is just such a peak of musicality that it's always inspiring, even though I — I could never be that, you know. 

Sophie Bearman [00:15:19] So that moment on stage, singing Billie Holiday at that blues bar, it was pretty defining, you'd say? 

Joan Osborne [00:15:25] You know, I think there was something that really galvanized me about — you know, first... first of all, I was in New York City. This little girl from a small town in Kentucky: here I am in New York City, standing on a stage, singing, and that sort of thrill of it. But just reconnecting with my voice as an adult, reconnecting with a song that, you know, has a lot of shades of meaning — it's not like a little pop song, it's not So Long, Farewell — awakened something in me that I think had been really dormant. And the piano player said, 'Oh, we have an open mic night here once a week. Why don't you come back again?' So I started coming back and that was really when I started to discover blues and roots music, this incredible music scene all around me in New York, which I hadn't really been paying attention to because I was going to school and I was focused on something else. 

Sophie Bearman [00:16:12] What was your day job? What were you doing originally to pay your way through college? 

Joan Osborne [00:16:16] In fact, I was a receptionist at a recording studio, one of those voiceover recording studios where people would come in and do like, 'Next on HBO,' that kind of thing. I remember James Earl Jones came in once and he was going to do an ad and I got to order him a pastrami sandwich. And I was so thrilled to be ordering a pastrami sandwich for James Earl Jones. 

Sophie Bearman [00:16:35] That's awesome. 

Joan Osborne [00:16:36] I got hired on this crew to paint one of the rooms in Keith Haring's apartment. And I remember this because it was this bright, bright, rich red color. And there was one of those old mobile gas signs with the big red pegasus on it hanging in there. And I did a good job, but I was so slow that they fired me. They said, 'I'm sorry, we can't use you. You have to be able to work faster than this.' But the music really started taking over. And I started going out at night to all the open mic nights and the open jam sessions that I knew about. I met a lot of musicians. People like The Holmes Brothers, who — incredible, incredible group — were sort of the kings of that scene. And I was getting a lot of positive feedback. And I also — I think there was something about the act of singing. In film, it takes a lot money and it takes teams of people and it take all this technology, whereas singing is something that comes out of your body. And of course, it's very immediate and you can feel that connection with the people who are listening to you if you're singing live. And I think there was something just so refreshing for me about that. So I was starting to put together my own band and made a little cassette tape on my boom box of our rehearsals and took it around to all these clubs. And one night somebody had a cancelation and said, you know, 'Can you come in?' So we did that show and started to actually get work in these clubs I was like, 'I can probably quit my day job right now, and if I don't follow this and see where it leads, be on my deathbed and be like, what if I had taken that chance?' So I thought, well, 'I'm going to do this.' And that was really the point at which I dropped out of school — you know, I may go back someday — but dropped out school and started doing music full time. 

Sophie Bearman [00:18:30] It's time for a quick break. When we're back, Joan charts her path to the top of the charts. Stay with us. 

Sophie Bearman [00:18:56] So your next song is from this era of singing open mic nights. You chose B.B. Kings' How Blue Can You Get. How come? 

Joan Osborne [00:19:05] Yeah. I knew my one Billie Holiday song, but I can only do that so much. So I had to go out and find other music to learn. And I knew about B.B. King. This is like the late '80s. So I went and bought one of his cassettes, and this song is from an album of his called Live at Cook County Jail, and it just blew my mind. I mean, not only was it B.B. King at the height of his powers as a singer, as a guitarist, but he was also working the crowd, and it taught me a lot about what it is possible to do with your audience. Plus, the whole thing takes place in a prison yard at the Cook County Jail outside of Chicago, Illinois. It's like an opera with blues music, the drama that's going on there. And just, just to listen to B.B. King, I mean, it still blows my mind what he could do. 

Music [00:19:59] [How Blue Can You Get by B.B. King plays]

Joan Osborne [00:20:19] The way he falls off of that one note, 'mmmm,' tumbles down off of it, and just taking his time and filling it completely with his soul every, every moment. That to me is kind of a masterclass in what you can do as a singer. You know, it's just — all of us are just thinking about 'What happened last week' or 'What I said to that person yesterday' or 'What do I have to do tomorrow' and music just nails you right to the floor of the here and now. And you can hear that in B.B. King in the way he's completely inhabiting every single note of that music. 

Sophie Bearman [00:20:53] And you later opened for him a few times, right? 

Joan Osborne [00:20:55] Yes, I have opened for him. Yeah. The first time was in Rochester, New York. And years later, we were doing a show outside of Chicago. And this time I had my daughter with me, who was two years old at the time. And it was just such a thrill, not only to meet him and speak with him backstage, but also to stand there and watch one of my all-time musical heroes and my little two-year-old have an interaction was just — I could have died happy right then. 

Sophie Bearman [00:21:23] So Joan, you founded your own independent record label in 1991. What was that like, especially as a woman in the music industry? 

Joan Osborne [00:21:31] I don't think I saw it as any kind of big deal political move. At this point, we were playing in New York City; upstate New York; and Burlington, Vermont; and Washington, D.C.; and Philadelphia and up to Boston and people were always coming up to us after the show and, 'I want to buy your tape, I wanna buy your tape.' So I was like, 'Ugh, I don t have any tapes to sell so I better get on this.' There was a bit of a blueprint that already existed, really in sort of the punk and hardcore scenes, of people doing these DIY records and so I wasn't just flying blind. There was a book that I bought at a bookstore down on Astor Place that was called How to Make and Sell Your Own Record and it went through — yeah, that's what it was called. 

Sophie Bearman [00:22:14] Selling Records for Dummies. 

Joan Osborne [00:22:15] Exactly. And I read it front to back, did everything that it said and, you know, I didn't have any money really, but I was playing a show out on Long Island at a place called Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett and talking with the guy who ran that place at the bar before the show and just telling him, you know, 'I plan to do this, but I don't really have a budget for it,' blah, blah blah. And he was like, 'Oh, I'll get the budget for you.' And he did. He and a couple of friends of his wrote me a check for it. I mean, it wasn't a huge amount of money, but it was as much as I needed to make it happen. And so he was one of the people who was like an early supporter and just had — without any hesitation at all — had total confidence and we paid him back completely within a year. 

Sophie Bearman [00:22:58] Amazing. What was the label called? 

Joan Osborne [00:22:59] Yeah. Womanly Hips Music. 

Sophie Bearman [00:23:01] Ooh. 

Joan Osborne [00:23:02] And it still is called that. 

Sophie Bearman [00:23:03] Why that name? 

Joan Osborne [00:23:04] Well, because that's what I have. And I think especially in blues music, there is this attitude of embracing your curvaceous figure. That was part of the appeal, for me, of blues music. Big Mama Thornton and people like that who just come out and like, 'I'm not going to win any beauty contest, but I'll rock your world.' And I was a bit Rubenesque. And that's not a body type that our media was reflecting in a positive way. And I didn't feel great about myself at that point. So to reach out to this other tradition and say, 'Hey, this is cool, you can be your size and be sexy and be beautiful and be confident.' And so I think naming the record label Womanly Hips Music was sort of a nod to that mindset. 

Sophie Bearman [00:23:48] So this is a time where you're making it as a singer, but you're singing covers of artists like Etta James, Otis Redding. You chose a song, though, that you said was sort of inspiration for writing your own music. This is The Rolling Stones' Shine a Light. So how did that help open you up to writing? 

Joan Osborne [00:24:05] Yeah, I mean, I had been trying to write songs, and I was not really satisfied with what I was coming up with. So I borrowed a cabin from a friend of a friend out in Colorado, and I took the Trailways bus out there by myself and was there for two weeks. And I was like, 'I'm just going to concentrate on my songwriting. I'm not going to do anything else.' And I brought a few tapes with me. And one of the tapes was Exile on Main St., the Rolling Stones record. And the lyrics of this song, Shine a Light, are about seeing a friend in the hospital struggling and suffering and giving them the gift of your attention and your prayers. It's The Rolling Stones doing a gospel song. 

Music [00:25:08] [Shine A Light by The Rolling Stones plays]

Joan Osborne [00:25:08] Just a very simple sentiment of compassion. And there was someone in my life struggling with mental health issues. And I just felt like, 'Well, maybe that's a way for me to approach this.' And I tried to imagine what they were feeling every day as they woke up in the morning — just carrying this heavy, heavy weight — and also try to express to them that there was a light at the end of the tunnel and that they should hold on. And the song that came out of that, called Crazy Baby, over and over again I've heard from fans that this was the song that meant so much to them and really helped them in moments where they were struggling. So I feel like I must have made it to a different, higher place with my writing than I had before. 

Joan Osborne [00:25:49] Well, let's listen to Crazy Baby, off your album, Relish. 

Music [00:25:52] [Crazy Baby by Joan Osborne plays]

Sophie Bearman [00:26:08] I was just reading through the YouTube comments. Someone said, 'This is a reminder of where I was and where I won't slide back to. Every day, I choose not to put out the light.' Another person said, 'This song got me through the worst time of my life. You know, I haven't been even able to listen to it for twenty years. I can hear it now.' It's really moving. 

Joan Osborne [00:26:26] Well, thank you. I mean, it was almost like a spiritual quest to be isolated up in the mountains in Colorado and not talk to anyone and try to pull up something that was beyond what I could have done before. 

Sophie Bearman [00:26:38] I wanna talk about your daughter. When did you become a mother and how did that change you? 

Joan Osborne [00:26:44] I became a mother about twenty years ago as a single person, and how does it change you? Oh my God. Well, it — there's whole other rooms that open up to you as a mom as far as being able to access your emotional depths, which of course for an artist and a writer is a good thing to be able to do. And I mean, she's a wonderful, wonderful person. She was a beautiful child and a very magical child. Being able experience the world through eyes of your kid as they're growing up is such a privilege. And it also, I think, took away any option for me to procrastinate because you don't have the kind of time that you used to have of like, 'Oh, I'll get around to finishing that song sometime' or 'I think I'd rather go out for drinks right now than sit down and work' or whatever. You do not have that option when you're a parent. You're like, 'Okay, she's napping. I've got 45 minutes. I've gotta finish this work.' So it turns you into a bit of a beast in that way. 

Sophie Bearman [00:27:43] And you were a single mom and touring? 

Joan Osborne [00:27:46] Yep, and I brought her on the road with me and either my mom, who was in her seventies at the time, came along as the road nanny. Sometimes it was a close family friend. And, you know, I was walking through airports with my daughter on one hip and the car seat in the other arm and the backpack slung over and I nursed until she was ten months old. And this was before they had the mama things in airports. So I was stuck up in a corner pumping breast milk in the airport and yeah, it was... 

Sophie Bearman [00:28:14] In bathroom stalls, yeah. 

Joan Osborne [00:28:15] Yeah, yeah. It was not pretty. I didn't want to have a child as a single woman and then just hand her over to a nanny because what's the point, really? So I had her with me as often as I could. And when she was very small, that was basically all the time. 

Sophie Bearman [00:28:31] So Joan, let's talk about your latest album, Nobody Owns You, an incredibly personal record. What story does it tell about you and where you are in life? 

Joan Osborne [00:28:40] Well, it came out of a period of a lot of change for me. I had been in a relationship for 15 years and that ended. My daughter became a grownup and moved out of the house and went to college. And that's a huge transition for a parent. And I turned sixty in that same time period. It becomes much more real to you that 'This life is finite and that you only have so many years left in this planet and what are you gonna do with them?' So I think that made the writing much more about deeper themes. I was like, 'What — what is worth saying in a song? What would you like to put out into the world while you're still here?'

Sophie Bearman [00:29:20] And the process of making the album, did it flow out of you or...

Joan Osborne [00:29:24] Yeah, I'm not worried so much about, 'Is somebody going to like this? What are they going to say about it? Am I exposing too much of myself by doing this?' Those concerns sort of fall away. And you're just like, 'I am who I am. I'm doing what I'm doing. If you're on board, that's great. And if you're not, that' fine too.' There was a lot less of the fear and second guessing that I've certainly faced many other times in my career. There was a lot less of me hiding from the process and pushing it away from me than, than there has been in the past. 

Sophie Bearman [00:29:56] Your last song is off this record. What's it about? 

Joan Osborne [00:29:59] Well, this is a song that I wrote for my daughter. At the time she was doing that thing that teenage girls do, which is rejecting the world that she came from, which means rejecting her mom. And, you know, that's a very painful thing, but you also understand that it's very appropriate and that she has to do that. You know, I had all this advice to give her. And she was not gonna hear anything that I might say to her. You know, despite how much we say to them, 'Oh, you can be anything you wanna be,' and I think there's also an undercurrent in our society that is very toxic — you know, the social media thing — and girls are very vulnerable. And I there are people who are more than willing to take advantage of that vulnerability, whether that's in an interpersonal relationship or whether that's social media. Or whether that's some corporation that's trying to sell them something. And I just wanted to say something to my daughter of 'You don't need any of that. You are complete within yourself.' As the title says, 'Nobody Owns You.' Not even me. 

Music [00:31:05] [Nobody Owns You by Joan Osborne plays] 

Sophie Bearman [00:31:38] What does your daughter think about the song now? 

Joan Osborne [00:31:42] She hasn't told me. She hasn't told me. 

Sophie Bearman [00:31:47] Is your relationship still strained with her? 

Joan Osborne [00:31:49] It's much better now. I think going away to college maybe made her feel secure enough in her own individuality that she didn't have to keep pushing me away. And we're entering a different phase of our relationship, which is — oh my god, it's so wonderful. It's so much better than it was. 

Sophie Bearman [00:32:09] I'd love to find you in five years and ask that same question, you know, because I'm sure maybe you guys will have talked about it then. You know, these things take time. They really do. 

Joan Osborne [00:32:18] Yeah, it's — you know, I'm not going anywhere. 

Sophie Bearman [00:32:20] Last question, what would you tell your twelve-year-old self, now? 

Joan Osborne [00:32:23] I think I would tell my twelve-year-old self, 'You probably know this deep within yourself, but just because other people are not getting you right now doesn't mean you're not a wonderful person.'

Sophie Bearman [00:32:34] Well, Joan, thank you so, so much for sharing your seven songs. It's been such an honor. 

Joan Osborne [00:32:40] Oh, well, thank you. It's a pleasure. Thanks for making me think about all this stuff again. 

Sophie Bearman [00:33:09] Life in Seven Songs is a production from the San Francisco Standard. If you liked this episode, you might enjoy my conversation with musician Rufus Wainwright. Check it out. And if you haven't already, please subscribe and like the show. It makes a huge difference for us. Our senior producer is Jasmyn Morris. Our producers are Michelle Lanz, who also mixes the show, Tessa Kramer, and Frank Zhou. Our theme music is by Kate Davis and Zubin Hensler, and Clark Miller created our show art. Our music consultant is Sarah Tembeckjian. Executive producers are Griffin Gaffney, Jon Steinberg, and me. As always, you can find this guest's full playlist at sf.news/spotify. I'm Sophie Bearman, thank you for listening, and see you next time.