Creed have set a new record for themselves with their era-defining 2000 single "With Arms Wide Open" — just as the band are (hopefully) due to reunite for a new album two decades on from their heyday, their chart-topping early-aughts hit has officially been RIAA-certified 2x Multi-Platinum.
The third single off Creed's 1999 album Human Clay (which was treated to a reissue back in 2019) has reached the milestone with over two million certified digital units sold in the US. While it arrived alongside the band's breakthrough sophomore album on September 28, 1999, it was officially released as a single on April 18, 2000.
As the story goes, the song was written by Creed frontman Scott Stapp and founding member Mark Tremonti after Stapp discovered that he was going to be a father.
"As a human being and as a father, my feelings haven't changed one bit from those that are expressed in that song," Stapp told Songfacts' Dan MacIntosh in 2013. "Every time I sing it, I can connect with it again and again and again because I'm no longer expressing fears in my thoughts about being a father; I'm a full-fledged living-it-every-day father. So it just rings true to me."
While expressing some truly admirable emotions, critics remain divided on the song. Critical reception of "With Arms Wide Open" is perhaps best summarized by the opposing forces of Foo frontman Dave Grohl, who once dubbed it "one of the most amazing songs of all time," and Stapp's own son, who apparently relentlessly chirps his dad's singing on the track to this day.
Hate it or not, you can revisit the newly minted double-Platinum 2000 classic below.
The third single off Creed's 1999 album Human Clay (which was treated to a reissue back in 2019) has reached the milestone with over two million certified digital units sold in the US. While it arrived alongside the band's breakthrough sophomore album on September 28, 1999, it was officially released as a single on April 18, 2000.
As the story goes, the song was written by Creed frontman Scott Stapp and founding member Mark Tremonti after Stapp discovered that he was going to be a father.
"As a human being and as a father, my feelings haven't changed one bit from those that are expressed in that song," Stapp told Songfacts' Dan MacIntosh in 2013. "Every time I sing it, I can connect with it again and again and again because I'm no longer expressing fears in my thoughts about being a father; I'm a full-fledged living-it-every-day father. So it just rings true to me."
While expressing some truly admirable emotions, critics remain divided on the song. Critical reception of "With Arms Wide Open" is perhaps best summarized by the opposing forces of Foo frontman Dave Grohl, who once dubbed it "one of the most amazing songs of all time," and Stapp's own son, who apparently relentlessly chirps his dad's singing on the track to this day.
Hate it or not, you can revisit the newly minted double-Platinum 2000 classic below.
