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"Open Arms" (originally titled "Rodeo") is the twentieth track from SZA's sophomore album SOS. It was released through Top Dawg and RCA on December 9, 2022. It features rapper Travis Scott.
As SZA’s and Travis Scott’s fifth song together, “Open Arms” is about being devoted to a person who accepts you for you, and being devoted to the person who loves you. Travis sings about wanting to be in love with someone forever, and wanting to be with them forever.
Music and production[]
While work on SOS had started being planned out since 2017, "Open Arms" was written and recorded in 2022 alongside a number of other songs due to bursts of productivity from time pressure. Lang commented, "that's when [we] started feeling like, hey, 'We gotta do this shit like, it's been some years.' We bottled up that energy and everything was just sort of a preparation for that moment." "Open Arms" is a sentimental ballad produced by Teo Halm, Michael Uzowuru, and Rob Bisel, backed by finger-picked acoustic guitar that puts emphasis on SZA's soft vocal performance.
SZA wanted to include acoustic music as a major element of her second studio album, SOS (2022), refusing to be described solely as an R&B artist because she was a Black woman: "I love making Black music, period. Something that is just full of energy. Black music doesn't have to just be R&B [...] Why can't we just be expansive and not reductive?" Scott's vocals are in the lower register and digitally manipulated using AutoTune, and he performs with a gentle rap cadence, a departure from his usual sound.
The song begins with a voice clip of Norma Rowe—SZA's grandmother who died from Alzheimer's disease during recording sessions for SOS, which caused her to go through frequent depressive episodes. Like Scott, Rowe's vocals prominently featured in Ctrl; "Open Arms" is the only song on SOS in which she appears, serving as a tribute to her. Describing Rowe's appearance in the song, Nylon wrote that she helps provide "Open Arms" a heartwarming tone to contrast much of the album's other tracks which are "roiling at the brim with anger, sadness, insecurity, and loneliness."
Lyrics[]
[Intro: Norma Rowe]
When you do your best you ca—, I done told you
When you do your best, hell, that's all you can do
You and me and anybody else
So they always start talkin'
[Verse 1: SZA]
Runnin' away from where I'm from
Never can stay with no one
Lovin' you almost feels like something
When no one's around me
You lost and found me
I was surrounded
With open, open, open
[Chorus: SZA & Travis Scott]
Open arms (Ooh)
Open arms
You keep me open, I'm so devoted
You keep me open (Ooh)
Open arms
I'm so devoted to you, to you, to you
[Verse 2: SZA]
Spent your life bein' hopeless
Chokin' on insecurity
I know all this is bad
But please put a leash on me anyway
Who needs self-esteem anyway?
I hate myself to make you stay
Push me away, I'll be right here
With open, open, open
[Chorus: SZA & Travis Scott]
Open arms (Ooh)
Open arms
You keep me open, I'm so devoted
You keep me open
Open arms
I'm so devoted to you, to you, to you
[Verse 3: Travis Scott]
No matter what come between us, yeah, I decided
I'm forever ridin', we forever guided
Pull up on an opp, hit his curb up, slide it (Brr)
Notice when you mad, ain't no words, just silence
Drew my favorite color, now you seein' every shade of me
You say that I'm trippin', I hit back like, "Where you takin' me?"
Locked in for life, on God, no replacin' me
Consequences, repercussions, karma keep on changin' me
For you, I try
Face card, valid ID
C'est la vie, go to Paris
It ain't five-star, it ain't me
Over-solid, keep it concrete
I'ma bet it on you, a whole fee
Just don't switch sides
I could fire piece your wrist, AP
Through the ups and downs and all the heat
Take a turn and tell you what it be
Backshots make you feel relief
Anything, just don't you ever leave
[Outro: SZA & Travis Scott]
I guess I gotta go (Ooh)
I guess it's time to go
I gotta let you go
(I'm so devoted)
You keep me open
Gotta let you go, gotta let you go
I gotta let you go, I must
You're the only one that's holdin' me down (Ooh)
You're the only one holdin' me down (Only one)
'Cause I'm the only one that's holdin' me down