It’s a sensitive song, so “back” does not refer to part of her body.

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Mallory O’Donnell: Last year creepy Robin Thicke wanted to sleep with you, this year he just wants to put you to sleep. Oh and “make it right.” Honey if you want to make it right you gotta give a girl a tune, not some post-midnight guitar pluckery and a pile of wet apologies.
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Alfred Soto: Closer to what I want from Thicke — the Robin Thicke of Love After War and “Lost Without U,” applying years of apprenticeship in which he studied space and the use of harmonies for the purpose of enlivening boring scenarios. A splendid 2006 album track, this, but if this becomes a hit I’ll retract some of the things I’ve written about “Blurred Lines.”
[6]

Patrick St. Michel: Sounds like spending all of Sunday in a hammock, and as it goes on you realize there is only so much hammock you can take on your day off.
[4]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Simple, bare, and the tabloid baggage actually matters less than you’d imagine; Thicke lends the sentiment more sweetness than smarm, but the sparseness of the backing music works harder (and better). By the end, he’s either circling the drain or making a mantra for positive thinking by repeatedly intoning about getting “her” back. It probably shouldn’t sound like one of those bugged Napster mp3s that loops the chorus over and over again, but it’s the thought that counts.
[5]

Anthony Easton: On the right side of almost country, in a universal meltdown, Ray Charles kind of way. It’s hard not to read autobiographically; this blue eyed meltdown is masochistic enough, in a quiet kind of way, to be almost as sexy as his peacock strutting. 
[9]

Brad Shoup: I would say this plays to his core strength, but our smooth R&B station has time for “Lost Without U” and “Blurred Lines,” so I dunno. There’s that velvet guitar, tapping your arm affectionately. Thicke’s falsetto is nowhere, though; perhaps it’s harder to summon, or perhaps he feels it’s time to be something closer to himself. This hovers and vaporizes, like most of his jams.
[4]

Katherine St Asaph: “Get Her Back” is supposedly about Paula Patton, but it’s really not, or at least not in any interesting way. What Robin really wants back is his old career, where he was a credible soul man rather than a peddler of old-school greasy sleaze and EDM. (Yes, Marvin Gaye now qualifies as EDM, at least to the “pop all sounds the same” crowd that’s cannibalized his former image. Weird thing is, Blurred Lines the album has a lot of trad, but it’ll be a good decade before anyone exhumes it.) So Thicke retreats to laid-back licks and casino-plush falsetto, and in doing so conveniently leaves reality and enters the realm of the stylized, where this codes more “romantic song archetype” and less “alarming miserablism for creep-oriented thinkpieces.” The realm, in other words, of Bruno Mars — except this could use a little more bang-bang on the chest.
[5]

Thomas Inskeep: I remember a time when Robin Thicke was R&B’s best-kept secret, the white soul boy who most of America (let alone the world) had never heard of, the marvelous singer of “Lost Without U” and “Love After War.” And then the rapey song happened, inexplicably becoming one of the biggest worldwide smashes of 2013. And then he became tabloid bait, and apparently cheated on his gorgeous actress wife, who left his dumb ass (remember Eric Benet and Halle Berry?). And then Thicke cut a song to get his wife back and premiered it on a TV awards show. Unfortunately, he forgot to write an actual song – this sounds like something scribbled on the back of an envelope in 10 minutes, pre-show. It also sounds completely insincere. I hope Paula Patton divorces his dumb ass.
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