Pharrell Williams Reacts to Hearing Daft Punk’s Finished ‘Get Lucky’ for First Time: ‘Wow’

Pharrell Williams reacts to hearing a completed “Get Lucky” for the first time in the 10th anniversary Random Access Memories video documenting Daft Punk’s classic 2013 LP.

“When monumental things happen, sometimes it’s lost on you, because I’m just so in it and being so present in the moment, and you’d think that would give you all the detail in the world, but it does the exact opposite for me. I get lost in it,” Williams says in the video.

“Working with them is just very magical because I feel like we all see music the same way, we saw music as this gift that was given to us to connect with people, set people free, liberate people.”

The Neptunes first worked with Daft Punk on a remix of “Harder, Better, Faster, Strong,” a collaboration that planted the seeds for Williams to be involved in Random Access Memories; as Williams recollects, he initially thought he would just be a songwriter on the album before he was recruited to record his vocals to “Get Lucky” and “Give Yourself to Dance.”

“I didn’t know who was gonna end up singing it. I left the studio thinking, ‘Okay, can’t wait to see who sings and what it sounds like,’” Williams said. “I didn’t hear it for a year, so I forgot what the song sounded like, both of them.”

Fast-forward a year, and the video shows Daft Punk inviting Williams back into the studio to hear the finished “Get Lucky” in the studio. “I don’t remember writing anything because we were just in a zone,” Williams said. 

Williams’ reaction to hearing the completed songs: “Wow… I’m so humbled and honored to be a part of that.”

The 10th-anniversary edition of Random Access Memories arrived earlier this year with an “early take” of Get Lucky, among other unreleased material. “The Robots,” as Williams calls them,” will next release a “drumless version” of Random Access Memories on November 17.

From Rolling Stone US.