As buoyant and blithe as it is, Robin Thicke’s ubiquitous “Blurred Lines” video is undoubtedly, unequivocally not for children’s eyes. But Jimmy Fallon apparently thinks everyone should hear Thicke’s cheery gospel — even the little ones.
That’s why Fallon recruited Thicke and the Roots to put a mom-approved spin on the chart-topping song — free of topless models or R-rated lyrics. The group — fully clothed in all black — ditches the back-up music and picks up classroom instruments to create a “Blurred Lines” with far less blurry intentions. (We’d like to see what director Diane Martel would think of it.)
Packed tight in a recording studio, Fallon’s helps keep the beat on a woodblock, ?uestlove’s got a shaker of some sort, and Thicke has … a spoon. One member of the ensemble pounds a rainbow xylophone, while another strums a ukulele. And then there’s the guy with the banana. It was unconfirmed at press time what the banana’s purpose was.
But what about the lyrics, you ask? Worry not, the Roots offer up their own G-rated take on T.I.’s sex-laden verse, dedicated to “my own Miss America.” “The best girlfriend I ever had is you … So I put a ring on it and I married you,” one member sings into a rasta-colored maraca.
In essence, it was three minutes of kid-friendly perfection. That is, unless you have a particularly precocious 8-year-old who can un-blur the suggestive words of the chorus. And if that’s the case, good luck.
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