SIX times. Count them.

Remember that time when it rained for an entire summer?  No, not that summer, I mean the other one. What? Oh, no, not that one either.  The summer I mean is the one when Rhianna's Umbrella song was at number 1 for weeks, and it rained pretty much the whole time it was at number 1, and we all blamed Rhianna and that stupid song in an attempt to be light hearted and jolly about what was, basically, another rubbish summer.

If you are anything like me, you probably thought the song was OK at first, and then got a bit sick of hearing it so much.  Maybe you're not like me.  Either way, you probably haven't spent as much time thinking about the Umbrella song as the guy behind this website has.

I will call him the Vigilant Citizen, because that's the name of his website and, to give him his due, he is nothing if not vigilant.  In the article which caught my eye*, he begins by posing a  burning question:

What is Rihanna’s Umbrella song about? First times I’ve heard this song, I was confused. Is it about a woman’s unconditional friendship for her man? Is it a “sexy song”?

Excellent use of quotation marks.

At face value, it seems so. However, if you listen closely to Rihanna and Jay-Z’s words, you might notice that the lyrics do not make any sense. The vocabulary used in this song is not about a relationship between two lovers. The fact is, Umbrella is about a subject matter that is sinister, dark and disturbing: becoming possessed by evil.

That's right, becoming possessed by evil.  I suppose the clue was in the article's title: Occult and Prophetic Messages in Rihanna’s Umbrella. (I am sure you can see why I read on.) The arguments are compelling. For instance:

In a nutshell, the song talks about a storm that’s about to take place and Rihanna offers her loved one protection under her umbrella. In this song, “You can stand under my umbrella” can have a sexual connotation but it mostly means “You can be under my protection”. When you are under something’s protection, this something has more power than you regarding your own security. You depend on it. It has control over you. IT possesses you. The song is not about love between woman and man, it’s about being protected. It is not an equal relationship. The one that protects basically owns the person that is protected.

Oh no!!  I had dinner this week with one of my more kind and thoughtful friends who, being the gent that he is, loaned me his coat when I got a bit chilly part way through the main course.  Now, offering someone a coat isn't all that different from offering them an umbrella.   Had I known that borrowing my friend's coat would mean that basically  now he OWNS me, I might have thought twice.  It wasn't that cold.
 
But I digress. What else do we need to know about they lyrics, Vigilant Citizen?  

The first thing that you need to know about the song’s lyrics is that Rihanna sings the whole song but she actually takes on two roles. During the first half of the song, she plays the role of an evil entity that is trying to seduce and possess Rihanna. For the purpose of this analysis we’ll call this entity the Devil. The second role she plays is herself. So the song is basically a dialog between the Devil and Rihanna.

How on earth did I miss this? It is particularly obvious in the bridge (the bridge, non-music-geeks, is that bit in between the verses and the chorus)

You can run into my arms
It’s okay don’t be alarmed
Come into me
There’s no distance in between our love
So go on and let the rain pour

Hmmmm. Still not convinced?   Luckily the Vigilant Citizen goes on to explain:

This part is actually a dialogue between the Devil and Rihanna. It is difficult to notice because there’s not difference in the tone of voice. The video however gives a visual clue of the dialogue by reversing the image when Rihanna answers the Devil

 

I bet Rhianna thought she was being clever, with that cunning no-difference-in-tone-of-voice disguise, but nothing gets past the Vigilant Citizen.  Having dealt with the bridge, he now turns his attention to the chorus:

What’s up with the Ella Ella eh’s? It sounds catchy doesn’t it? The repetitive and hypnotic rhythm of this chant makes it very reminiscent of magical spells, conjurations or summons.

Quite.  Anyone else now starting to see Hey Jude (all those hypnotic na-na-nas in the chorus) in a whole new light?

Jay-Z's contribution to the song, incidentally,  is a rap which comes near the beginning.  It's not just any old rap, though.  Apparently it's a spookily accurate foretelling of the current global financial crisis.  In rhyme.  Jay-Z, according to the Vigilant Citizen, has already been taken over by the devil.

 If we are to follow the logic, the only conclusion to be reached is that none of the major players in the world financial markets have ever borrowed an umbrella from anyone.  If they had, and had subsequently, as we now know would be the case, become possessed by the devil, surely they too would have developed Jay-Z's ability to forsee impending financial doom, which would have saved us all a lot of woe.

What next, Vigilant Citizen?

So now that you probably gained another perspective on the song’s lyrics, we can proceed to analyze the video.

The Vigilant Citizen has quite a lot to say about the video which, he claims, shows the Devil having sex with Rhianna, and, to put it delicately, suggests this is not consensual.  He has three main arguments for this, the first of which involves this scene:

Dressed in white and thus embodying “the good girl with values”, Rihanna dances while performing defensive gestures. She is trying to protect herself from the chrome liquid, which represents the seminal fluid of the Devil. The liquid hits her a total of 6 times.

SIX times. Count them.

The next time we see her, she seems in pain and not quite herself:

I don't quite see what he's getting at here to be honest; I sit like that all the time. It's more comfortable than it looks.

Finally, at the end of the song, Rihianna sings

It’s raining

Ooh baby it’s raining

 The “ooh baby” makes it clear that we’re not talking about raindrops falling from the sky.

Crystal clear. Obviously we're talking about the *other* kind of raindrops (wink wink, nudge nudge).  Chrome ones.

To finish off this great report on Rihanna’s masterpiece of deceit, here’s her performance at the MTV Europe awards. Once again, HEAVY occult symbolism here (and she sucks at signing too).

I think the Vigilant citizen means singing.  Or maybe he's just a disgruntled fan who tried and failed to get her autograph at the MTV Europe awards.  Either way, it's clear he doesn't think Rihanna is all that.  But, because he's so vigilant, he knows that not everyone will agree with him.  In fact, he's even gone so far as to anticipate their objections:

Before leaving a comment, please make sure that I’m VERY AWARE of the fact that Rihanna DID NOT WRITE this song and this fact changes ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in the analysis.

I think we can all sleep a little better tonight, safe in the knowledge that the Vigilant Citizen is looking out for us all.


*In the interest of vigilance, I should say it wasn't the article itself which caught my eye, although I was taken immediately; it was a Twitter tip-off via the guy behind the excellent Letters of Note website.