![]() But for those who do know the song’s “other” interpretation, we’ve got an even darker story to grapple with, one about a woman who longs for more than just being used sexually by her man. First, if you don’t know what work really means, it just sounds like someone who’s frustrated with a man who makes her labor and toil too much. Given all of that, there are a couple of ways to think about this song. Interpretations, Innuendoes and Outright Awfulness “Yeah, OK/You need to get done, done, done, done at work, come over/We just need to slow the motion.” Then he adds, with faux magnanimity (that’s belied elsewhere), “I don’t want to rush into it if it’s too soon.” In the end, though, he just keeps pushing her to go to work (“Now you need to forward and give me all the/Work, work, work, work, work, work”). Her man this time around, played by Drake on the song and in the video (and perhaps in real life these days, too, if tabloid reports are accurate) seems pretty chill about her desperation. That last plea is especially haunting given the abuse that Rihanna infamously suffered at the hands of her then-boyfriend Chris Brown back in 2009. “Beg you something please,” she cries, “Baby, don’t you leave/Don’t leave me stuck here in the streets.” Then she promises, “If I get, get another chance to/I will never, no never neglect you/I mean, who am I to hold your past against you?” We don’t know why, for sure, but the second verse perhaps implies that she’s economically vulnerable and thus desperate for her man to stick around. Still, she stays with the guy, even though he’s only interested in taking advantage of what her body has to offer him. ![]() “Me a desert him!” she declares, followed by a tale of being seduced by his slick promises (“I believed all of your dreams, adoration/You took my heart on my sleeve for decoration/ … All that I wanted from you was to give me/Something that I never had”). The first verse after the chorus (which launches the song) narrates the story of a woman who longs for a deeper connection with her man, but all he’s interested in is … work. With that decoder ring in hand, the song begins to make sad sense: “Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex/He said I have to have/Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex.”Īnd while Rihanna has been more than happy to use sex to sell records (and attract video viewers, which I’ll get to momentarily) in the past, this time around she seems to be playing the part of a woman who doesn’t much care for the sexual subjugation she feels compelled to submit to. As for “haffi,” that’s shorthand for “have to.” There is a complaint on “Work.” And the nature of it becomes quite clear when we realize the word work in Jamaican Patois (a lingo Rihanna grew up with) is also slang for sex. “He said me haffi/Work, work, work, work, work, work.”īut what if the titular word is actually a stand-in for something else? I Do Not Think That Word Means What You Think It Means “Work, work, work, work, work, work,” she complains. ![]() Listening literally and concretely to “Work,” you hear a song that sounds like a complaint about a man who forces his lover to work too much.
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