Robin Thicke’s deposition has been unsealed from back when Robin, Pharrell Williams & T.I. filed a lawsuit against the estate of Marvin Gaye to prove that “Blurred Lines” did NOT sample Marvin’s classic “Got to Give It Up” — and it’s juicy!
Though most of the court proceedings were sealed, the depositions have become available and in reading them we’ve learned some pretty interesting things about Robin and how “Blurred Lines” came to be.
First, he admitted his rampant drug use:
“With all due respect, I was high and drunk every time I did an interview last year. Every day, I woke up, I would take a Vicodin to start the day and then I would fill up a water bottle with vodka and drink it before and during my interviews.”
Second, despite being credited for writing “Blurred Lines,” he says he was so high he really couldn’t have.
“Q: Were you present during the creation of ‘Blurred Lines’?
Thicke: I was present. Obviously, I sang it. I had to be there.
Q: When the rhythm track was being created, were you there with Pharrell?
Thicke: To be honest, that’s the only part where — 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.”
He also talked a bit why his wife Paula Patton finally left him.
“I told my wife the truth. That’s why she left me.”
The truth about what? Maybe we’ll find out one day.
Robin’s deposition wasn’t the only interesting part. Pharrell’s deposition revealed what we all knew about today’s music industry when it comes to writing credits. If Robin was too high to function, why was he credited for writing the song?
Pharrell says:
“This is what happens every day in our industry. You know, people are made to look like they have much more authorship in the situation than they actually do. So that’s where the embellishment comes in.”
He went as far as to credit the success of the song to the fact that Robin is a white man singing soulfully.
“Q: In your view, what holds ‘Blurred Lines’ together throughout the different sections?
Williams: What holds it together?
Q: Yeah.
Williams: Robin Thicke’s voice.
Q: Does the bass line and the keyboard hold the songs together through the different sections?
A: No.
Q: Why not?
A: Because it’s the white man singing soulfully and we, unfortunately, in this country don’t get enough — we don’t get to hear that as often, so we get excited by it when the mainstream gives that a shot. But there’s a lot of incredibly talented white folk with really soulful vocals, so when we’re able to give them a shot — and when I say ‘we,’ I mean like as in the public gives them a shot to be heard, then you hear the Justin Timberlakes and you hear the Christina Aguileras and you hear, you know, all of these masterful voices that have just been given, you know, an opportunity to be heard because they’re doing something different.”
Hm. Okay. Again, none of this is really ‘new’ information — but it’s always interesting hearing it come from the people directly involved as opposed to the streets.
[via The YBF]
