Robin Thicke Wows with Piano Medley in Court

From the “if you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready files,” as proceedings continued in the Robin Thicke “Blurred Lines” case, Thicke tickled the ivories for jurors as part of his testimony in court today.  The move came as Thicke’s attorneys sought to prove that Thicke did not steal the melodic elements of his hit song from Marvin Gaye’s classic, “Got to Give It Up.”

With Pharrell Williams and Marvin Gaye’s son Frankie and daughter Nona among the onlookers inside the courtroom, Thicke performed a medley of songs that included U2’s “With or Without You” and Bob Marley’s “No Woman No Cry,” according to the Hollywood Reporter.  The concerto was intended to allow jurors to hear and compare specific phrases from “Blurred Lines” and “Got to Give It Up,” as well as to hear the respective keys each song was written in.  The additional songs were included so that jurors could also hear how closely some other songs may be to one another in melody, structure, and chord progression, and presumably to prove that those similarities do not automatically constitute plagiarism.

In 2013, Thick, Williams, and T.I. (Clifford Harris, Jr.) sued Marvin Gaye’s family in an attempt to dispute the family’s claims that “Blurred Lines” was a rip off of Gaye’s song.  To further complicate this already convoluted court battle, the Gaye family countersued and also claimed that another of Thicke’s chart-toppers, “Love After War,” was lifted from Gaye’s “After the Dance.”  And because one twist deserves another, Thicke’s ex-wife, Paula Patton, who is listed as a co-writer on “Love After War,” will be called to testify in this ongoing legal conundrum.