Russian Roulette

In this song, Rihanna is playing a dangerous game with a guy who will either be her white knight or the death of her - she won't know until she pulls the metaphorical trigger. As the song goes on, we start to wonder if she's playing a literal game of Russian Roulette as it gets more intense: As my life flashes before my eyes I'm wondering will I, ever see another sunrise? At the end of the song, we hear some clicks followed by a gunshot, which takes the song to a very dark place.

"Russian Roulette" was the first single from Rihanna's fourth album, Rated R. She wrote the creepy ballad with her fellow Def Jam artist Ne-Yo, who previously worked with the Barbados native on a number of her hits, including Unfaithful and Take a Bow. Ne-Yo, who also co-produced the track, told MTV News that it was Rihanna who requested the song's haunting vibe. "She wanted to be dark, but not just dark for the sake of being dark," he said. "Dark with kind of a meaning, dark with some kind of thing to it."

Ne-Yo explained to MTV News how he came up with the song's eerie Russian Roulette theme. "I'm listening to the track, and all I can see is Rihanna and some random person sitting across from each other at the table with a gun sitting in the middle of the table and playing Russian Roulette," he said. "And I just started thinking, 'What would go through your mind if you was in that situation?' It just all started coming together, and Rihanna has never been one to be afraid to take a chance, especially with me. She's always game to do something a little different. I played it for her, and she loved it - went in and knocked it out. The rest is history."