Robin Thicke has had a hell of a year. After his hit Blurred Lines came out last year, he’s had mixed results in his professional and personal life. Thicke’s wife, Paula Patton, left him, which spawned an album from Thicke entitled “Paula.” Thicke and Pharrell Williams were then sued by Marvin Gaye’s family for the Blurred Lines song, which sampled the “Got to Give It Up” record. Thicke had attempted to pre-empt the lawsuit, but failed. Thicke was then forced to testify under oath, where he admitted to drug use and lying about how much of the song he had actually written.
“I was high on vicodin and alcohol when I showed up at the studio. So my recollection is when we made the song, I thought I wanted — I — I wanted to be more involved than I actually was by the time, nine months later, it became a huge hit and I wanted credit. So I started kind of convincing myself that I was a little more part of it than I was and I — because I didn’t want him — I wanted some credit for this big hit. But the reality is, is that Pharrell had the beat and he wrote almost every single part of the song.”
These statements are different from what Thicke said about his role in the making of “Blurred Lines” in the past. He told GQ in May 2013:
“Pharrell and I were in the studio and I told him that one of my favorite songs of all time was Marvin Gaye’s ‘Got to Give It Up.’ I was like, “Damn, we should make something like that, something with that groove.” Then he started playing a little something and we literally wrote the song in about a half hour and recorded it.”