Pharrell Williams Denies Imitating Marvin Gaye in Blurred Lines

Pharrell Williams denied imitating Marvin Gaye in his hit single which came out two years ago titled Blurred Lines. He said that while he was impressed by his style and incorporated it into his works, he never went as far as out-and-out plagiarism.

Pharrell Williams testified before a jury regarding his song Blurred Lines which is supposed to be a rip off of a long deceased artist named Marvin Gaye. He admitted to the fact that he admired Gaye’s vision and melodies and that they were his source of inspiration but that didn’t mean that he copied them in such a blatant manner.

Pharrell furthermore spoke of how while he was undergoing the transformation from a kid to an adult, Marvin’s music often played in the background in his residence. So he was pretty familiar with the music.

But that in no way meant that he acted in copycat fashion and made what was fundamentally someone else’s as his personal property. Blurred Lines was a simple song that got made by Pharrell and Robin Thicke and T.I. Williams spoke of how he considered Marvin Gaye to be the best and how he wouldn’t dare try to reach his level of sheer genius.   

Marvin Gaye’s offspring have currently brought a lawsuit against Pharrell and company regarding copyright infringement as far as Gaye’s song Got to Give it Up is concerned. Williams was responsible for the lyrics and tunes in the song Blurred Lines which bears an uncanny resemblance to Marvin’s song.

Williams explained how his creative musical brainstorming led to the creation of this song. He said that it took a lot of work but the effort was worth it in the end. Williams sometimes went too far in his description of the creative process and had to be reminded by the judge to keep it short.

Williams acknowledged that after the song had been made and gone on to earn him and Robin millions of dollars worth of cash, he realized sheepishly that it had many elements of Marvin Gaye’s music in it. But Williams swears that this was pure coincidence and he never did it with any conscious awareness.

Now this is controversial territory we are entering here. The fact that parts of tunes from other songs appear in someone’s songs /4/have nothing to do with making carbon copies and everything to do with the collective unconscious being at work.

Blurred Lines has raked in $20 million which was distributed unequally between Pharrell, Robin and T.I. The estate of Marvin Gaye is suing these three artists to the amount of $40 million. Let’s see who wins and who loses in the end.