Hit maker Pharrell Williams and collaborator Robin Thicke are suing the family of Marvin Gaye in response to claims that “Blurred Lines” took parts of 1977’s “Got To Give It Up.”
Pharrell Williams leaves a federal courthouse in Los Angeles after testifying on Wednesday.
Nick Ut / AP
He'd been working with Miley Cyrus earlier in the studio, he said, and he was interested in creating a song around a chorus with close harmonies.
"My mind was already in that bluegrass harmony, yodely thing," he said.
In a later interview, he'd describe the record-breaking hit as his attempt to capture the feel of Marvin Gaye, if the soul superstar had gone to Nashville. But in court, Williams testified that as he was initially writing the song, '70s soul and, specifically, the song "Got To Give It Up" were nowhere near his thoughts.
"As a creator, you get a kick out of bringing new things into the ether," he said.
"He's one of the ones we look up to so much," Wiliams said on the witness stand. "This is the last place I want to be right now."
Williams and his collaborator, Thicke, originally filed a federal lawsuit against Gaye's descendants in August 2013 after the family raised questions about the similarities between "Blurred Lines" and "Got To Give It Up." In Williams and Thicke's claim, they said the Gaye family overstepped by calling common musical elements between the songs an infringement of copyright.
"Being reminiscent of a 'sound' is not copyright infringement," the claim says. "In reality, the Gaye defendants are claiming ownership of an entire genre, as opposed to a specific work."
SOURCE: BuzzFeed
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