Before continuing, please watch this music video, it is absolutely magnificent.
Now, watch it again. Seriously, you owe it to yourself.
Aside from Doug McDermott’s turnaround baseline jumper, it is the most marvelous thing that I have had the pleasure of witnessing since coming to Creighton. So how did I come across this artistic masterpiece? Viner Aaron Chewning parodies Creed lead singer Scott Stapp’s voice on his vine profile as well as on his snapchat story from time to time.
Winner of the 2000 Grammy for Best Rock Song, Creed’s With Arms Wide Open has largely been forgotten by the majority of Creighton students that I have talked to. It is the type of song that you know you recognize but may not listen to on a consistent basis. It was temporarily revived by a Jimmy Fallon parody performance in 2011 in which Fallon describes the process of exchanging unwanted gifts in his interpretation of the entrancing voice that belongs to Scott Stapp.
It faded back into obscurity shortly thereafter, only to be brought back to life on a smaller scale by Chewning in the past few months. I would chuckle each time he would zoom in on a random oddly dressed individual doing something out of the ordinary with the chorus playing, but it had never occurred to me to check out the music video until a few days ago.
Needless to say, it was a life-altering experience. I now have it bookmarked on Google Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. I even downloaded Internet Explorer just in case my modern-day browsers crash and I need to satisfy my Creed fix. My browsing history is embarrassing only if you believe that looping the video for hours on end is socially unacceptable.
Stapp wrote the song about the apprehension and excitement he felt after he found out he was going to be a father. He was raised in a strict Christian household, and did not want his first son to grow up questioning himself and his faith. (Source) Stapp’s lyrics reflect the profound emotions associated with fatherhood, and the music video was made during the MTV-era in which dancing in a color-changing box was neither adequate, meaningful, nor doable due to technological constraints.
CGI was in its infancy, as evidenced by the clipart-looking asteroids that fall out of the sky, but that does not make the video any less awe-inspiring. You have a cast-iron bell crashing through the floor, gorgeous mountainous terrain along the ocean, and a reverse-baptism in a bubbling pool of what I can only imagine to be Michael Jordan’s secret stuff. There is no way something so unequivocally astonishing is produced without the help of an otherworldly substance.
So if you believe in awesome, watch this music video, and watch it often. Show your friends and your family. Show a stranger who looks down on their luck—it will make their day. If nothing else, it will unite us in the nostalgia that is late 1990’s/early 2000’s post-grunge music. Come along with me on this journey, and I’ll show you love, I’ll show you everything... with ahrms whide ohpehn. *Scott Stapp voice*
