I like Pharrell Williams’ music. I don’t find it deep or insightful but it makes me bop in a not “would-you-please-make-it-stop?” kinda way…oh, and “Happy” makes me…happy, although I’m genuinely concerned that it has instilled in millions of young poets a tacit laziness by popularizing the rhyming of “roof” and “truth”.  Mr. Williams’ perceived public persona, (hard to avoid since he’s literally everywhere), seems genuine, engaging and honest, while his collaborator on the song “Blurred Lines”, Robin Thicke, (I don’t know him or really anything about him), comes off as a tool, (I believe this is very hip, derogatory terminology).  Their song, which shamelessly steals the essence of Marvin Gaye’s, “Got to Give It Up”, released 33 years earlier, is being contested by Mr. Gaye’s heirs in a civil suit that is due to be decided any day now.  This type of situation is not new to the music business. Artists have a perpetual tendency to respectfully borrow, feloniously plagiarize or subconsciously rewrite someone else’s music and/or lyrics.  Famously, one of George Harrison’s most successful compositions, “My Sweet Lord”, just happened to already have been composed as “He’s So Fine” by Ronald Mack and had been a big hit for The Chiffons in 1962.  The difference, however, between the “Blurred Lines” situation and “My Sweet Lord” is, that even though the handlers for Mr. Harrison and misters Williams and Thicke, both encouraged litigiousness to protect their client’s reputation, to say nothing of the piles of dough amassed by both of these mega hits, George Harrison freely admitted that he obviously regurgitated a melody that was deeply seeded in his musical DNA, settling, amicably, with Mr. Mack’s estate, while the “Blurred Lines” boys have opted to lawyer up to the very end, (something expected of a tool, but shame on you, Pharrell).  Time and the irrepressible blurriness of American jurisprudence will soon provide a resolution.

And…to Alabama, the state where “blur” can describe the half-hearted attempt at coherent speech, the genealogical distance, (or lack therof), between married cousins, the reasons for misinterpreting laws regarding equality or the memory of racial atrocities…happy Golden Anniversary, Selma!