Question by lucas2naruto: Can someone explain to me the video “Russian Roulette” By Rhianna?
I Mean I really Dont Get Pleaz Explain Nd Explain The Song
Best answer:
Answer by Erica
If Rihanna’s career has been about noir, “Russian Roulette” is the moment in the novel where someone finally pulls a gun from a trench coat and changes everything. Lyrics like “I’m terrified but I’m not leaving / I know that I must pass this test” and “It’s too late to pick up the value of my life” pointedly allude to that event and a very bleak set of emotions accompanying it. Yet Rihanna purposefully avoids any hard statements about how (or if) the song relates to what she knows we’re all thinking. For music fans more accustomed to the upbeat revenge ballads of the Dixie Chicks or the stay-strong resilience of Mary J. Blige, Rihanna’s choice of metaphor in this song — that she’s powerless before fate in a game of roulette for her life — will come as a shock and, understandably, perhaps a disappointment to fans hoping for something more reassuring.
Yet there are so many reads to this strange, oblique song that you can’t just walk away from it with a perfunctory sadness or tsk-tsking that she should set a better example. Is there any power in Rihanna’s choosing, of her own volition, to play this violent game of chance? Is she talking about her career — that the correct next move for her feels entirely unknowable after a night like that? Is this just a well-timed dramatic sliver of the many complicated emotions surrounding her assault, one that could make other victims feel heartened that they aren’t alone in such contradictory thoughts?
True to form, Rihanna leaves all these possibilities open, refusing to point us to any one of them. For most of her career, this has been an evocative, rewarding artistic path. Rihanna is an artist who thrives on misdirection, but given the incredibly high profile nature of the incident with Brown and the widespread speculation about the details of their relationship, one wonders if her typically removed way of writing about difficult feelings is the most effective approach here.
One place to start looking for clues is in the long, complex history of songs sung by women about being the victims of domestic violence. I’m in no way trying to sum up the whole history of this topic here, but a few famous examples do stand out. The most immediate parallel might be the Crystals’ “He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss),” written by the husband-and-wife team Carole King and Gerry Goffin about the Crystals’ Little Eva’s own experience with abuse, and her sense that her man did it out of love for her. Like “Roulette,” this is a song about domestic violence sung by a woman, yet with lyrics written by a man — but they are very different artifacts. King and Goffin’s song is an outspoken pop document of private pain, while “Roulette” is an inscrutable tune alluding to one of the most talked-about moments in pop culture this year. Neither Little Eva nor Rihanna is known for original songwriting contributions, but it is striking that they would trust a man — even a longtime collaborator – to put words to situations so strongly charged with gender power dynamics. Whether that’s just a reflection of their longstanding writing processes or a conscious decision is impossible to know.
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