Motherlover (2:49)

“Motherlover” is a song by American comedy troupe The Lonely Island featuring singer Justin Timberlake. The song and music video debuted on Saturday Night Live as an SNL Digital Short on May 9, 2009. A sequel of the collaborators’ earlier short, “Dick In A Box”, the song finds the two early 1990s R&B ballad singers (Andy Samberg and Timberlake) singing of their desire to have sex with each other’s mothers (Patricia Clarkson and Susan Sarandon) as the ultimate tribute to Mother’s Day.

The short was an effort between the two artists during a sleepless week of writing, recording and shooting before it aired. The song was written by The Lonely Island (Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer) with Timberlake on the Tuesday before the short’s premiere. Samberg and Timberlake recorded the song in an all-night session two days later, with a 20-hour video shoot commencing the next day. Schaffer began editing the footage early Saturday morning and only completed the short within minutes of its broadcast debut, finalizing the video while the show was already live.

Released the day before Mother’s Day 2009, the video was an immediate viral hit, in the same vein of its predecessor. The song was released as a single shortly before the release of The Lonely Island’s sophomore record, Turtleneck & Chain.