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Pharrell Williams takes to the stand in Blurred Lines trial

By | Published on Thursday 5 March 2015

Pharrell

You know what couldn’t have been further from Pharrell’s tiny little mind while he was penning monster hit ‘Blurred Lines’? No, not the common decency to not write a pop anthem for rape apologists everywhere. True, that was quite some distance away too, but situated several furlongs ever further west was Marvin Gaye’s ‘Got To Give It Up’.

In fact all things Marvin Gaye were nowhere near the studio that day: the very ‘concept’ of Marvin Gaye, the ‘essence’ of Marvin Gaye, the ‘genius’ of Marvin Gaye, the ‘spirit’ of Marvin Gaye, the ‘charm’ of Marvin Gaye, the ‘vibe’ of Marvin Gaye, the ‘love’ of Marvin Gaye, the ‘legacy’ of Marvin Gaye, all of it was miles and mile away, and hidden by a big messy pile of common decency. OK, the ‘feel’ of Marvin Gaye, that might have been there. But you can’t infringe a feeling. Go on, try it. Can’t be done.

So yes, the cliché that is Pharrell Williams was in court yesterday as the ‘Blurred Lines’ copyright trial continues to go through the motions. Long story short: the Gaye family reckons ‘Blurred Lines’ ripped off ‘Got To Give It Up’, but legal reps for Williams and Robin Thicke argue that any similarities between the two tracks are just common features of funky pop music. There’s also some contention as to how much of ‘Got To Give It Up’ is actually protected by copyright – just the core composition, or all the film and the flam we hear on the actual recording.

After Thicke’s star turn on the piano last week, in which the pop letch claimed once again that he had next to zero input in creating ‘Blurred Lines’, despite the co-write credit and all the royalty cheques he’s been cashing, yesterday the actual writer of the song, Williams, took to the stand. And while conceding that both he and Thicke had themselves noted the similarities between the two songs in media interviews after the release of ‘Blurred Lines’, Williams insisted that said similarities were noticed after the fact. At the time of creating his hit neither Gaye nor ‘Got To Give It Up’ entered his head.

Though, according to The Hollywood Reporter, he did concede that “I must’ve been channelling that feeling, that late 70s feeling”. But you can’t copyright a feeling remember. “Sometimes when you look back on your past work” he added. “You see echoes of people. But that doesn’t mean that’s what you were doing [at the time]”.

Williams was initially asked, by his own legal rep Howard King, about that previously reported pre-trial deposition he gave in relation to this case, in which he didn’t come across especially well. But the Gaye family’s lawyer was “purposefully trying to get a rise out of me” the mega-producer argued, which resulted in his unhelpful answers. “It was very frustrating to me because I have such tremendous respect for Marvin Gaye”, he added. “I pride myself on being a peaceful person”.

Discussing how ‘Blurred Lines’ was written, he confirmed he initially worked alone on the track, though said that wasn’t unusual. While playing around in the studio, the initial idea for the song came on the drums, and he started to build the track from there. And while the Gaye oeuvre definitely wasn’t in his mind, the music he had been working on with Earl Sweatshirt and Miley Cyrus that same week definitely was. He’d been doing some country-sounding stuff with Cyrus, he said, and when he turned his hand to the Thicke hit “it was like blending this country sound with this up-tempo groove”.

By the time Thicke joined him in the studio that evening, he said, pretty much the whole song – beat, melody, lyrics – were done. TI’s rap bit was added later and wasn’t part of the original plan. But at no point in these proceedings was the Gaye track even mentioned. Because if there’s one thing Williams would never do, it’s rip off Marvin Gaye. He told the court: “He’s one of the ones we look up to so much. This is the last place I want to be right now. The last thing you want to do as a creator is take something of someone else’s when you love him”.

So that’s all fun, isn’t it?

Earlier in the week, the accounts for Thicke and Williams’ hit were shared in court, showing that ‘Blurred Lines’ brought in $16,675,690 in profits, which was split $5,658,214 to Thicke, $5,153,457 to Williams, $704,774 to TI, and the rest to Universal and its affiliates. Which shows there’s still good money to be made from a hit single if you can just get the recipe right: three parts prime misogyny, one part pop letch, four parts Pharrell sparkle and two parts incredible good luck. Oh, and ten parts Gaye theft. Or not. Possibly not.



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