‘Wish You Were Here’ by Pink Floyd at 50
‘Wish You Were Here’, the ninth studio album by seminal English prog rockers Pink Floyd, turns 50 this year.
Released on 12 September in 1975, ‘Wish You Were Here’ is Pink Floyd’s troubled love letter to band founder Syd Barrett, who left in 1968 due to his deteriorating mental health. Syd’s whimsical psychedelic visions formed the creative engine of Pink Floyd’s music in their early days. But by 1968 he was unable to perform reliably and was temporarily replaced by guitarist David Gilmour, who would permanently join the band in Syd’s absence.
Syd Barrett left an indelible mark on Pink Floyd, and his departure created a wound that never truly healed for his bandmates Roger Waters, Nick Mason, Richard Wright and David Gilmour. Without Syd’s creative leadership, Waters largely took the reins of writing, which caused tension with the others and would lead to Waters leaving the band in 1985.
Syd remained a powerful presence, becoming a central figure in Pink Floyd lore and their expansive musical narratives. On their previous album ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’, Syd was used as martyr to the inescapable cruelty of the modern world – the ravages of time, the pursuit of money, the brutality of war – all leading to inevitable death.
For ‘Wish You Were Here’, Syd was a martyr to the ugliness of the music business. Syd’s breakdown coincided with Pink Floyd’s first exposure to fame and success, which Waters used to reflect his own growing distaste for the trappings of rock stardom and the insidiousness of the music industry itself.
The album is bookended by ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’, an opus in nine parts around which the concept of ‘Wish You Were Here’ is built. ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’ began as one of three musical ideas Pink Floyd were mapping out for what would be their next two albums. The other two compositions, ‘Raving And Drooling’ and ‘You Gotta Be Crazy’ were used as the basis for ‘Sheep’ and ‘Dogs’ for 1977’s ‘Animals’.
‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’ reestablishes Syd as a visionary who becomes disconnected from reality. “Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun. Now there’s a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky.” In a few short years, Pink Floyd had watched their intrepid leader become a shadow of his former self as he succumbed to madness. The lyrics revisit familiar contrasting themes of light and dark, sun and moon, life and death prevalent in ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’.
In ‘Welcome To The Machine’, metallic throbbing and haunting vocals reflect the crass cynicism and mindless, drone-like nature of the music industry. A factory (“you’ve been in the pipeline, filling in time”) where artists are cut, forged, and processed in the hopes of fulfilling their rock and roll dreams. “You dreamed of a big star. He played a mean guitar. He always ate at the steak bar. He loved to drive in his Jaguar.”
“The Machine is self-perpetuating because its fuel consists of dreams,” Roger Waters has said.
“The rock machine isn’t oiled and doesn’t actually run on people’s appreciation of music or their wish to interest themselves in music and listen to it, in my opinion. At the base of it all, it runs on dreams … And the dream is that when you are successful, when you’re a star, you’ll be fine. Everything will go wonderfully well. That’s the dream, and as everybody knows, it’s an empty one.”
‘Have A Cigar’ brings us into the sleazy world of record executives, where profit is king and artists become another commodity. “Come in here, dear boy. Have a cigar, you’re gonna go far,” is the promise. Misgivings morph into disillusionment when he tells us the name of the game: “And we call it riding the gravy train.” The dream has been shattered by grim reality.
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The title track, the album’s most well-known and loved song, offers a sentimental reprieve, its lyrics again employing themes of contrast. Being able to distinguish Heaven from Hell, blue skies from pain, green fields from a cold steel rail, a smile from a veil. It had been years since anyone in Pink Floyd had seen or heard from Syd; a hero had been traded for a ghost. For Waters, the disconnect had grown into a longing to see his old friend, like “two lost souls living in a fishbowl, year after year.”
Strangely, it was during the recording sessions for ‘Wish You Were Here’ that Syd Barrett mysteriously reappeared, unexpectedly visiting the studio one day. Recording for ‘Wish You Were Here’ began in the first week of 1975 at Abbey Road Studios in London. On 5 June, Syd turned up at the studio unannounced and watched the band work on the final mix of ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’.
No one in the band had seen Syd in years and didn’t initially recognise the bald, overweight stranger with no eyebrows as their old friend. Roger Waters is said to have burst into tears when he realised it was Syd, shocked at the drastic change in his appearance and demeanour. Sadly, it was the last time they saw him and in 2006, Syd Barrett passed away from pancreatic cancer at the age of 60. No members of Pink Floyd attended his funeral.
At 50, ‘Wish You Were Here’ remains one of Pink Floyd’s best albums and is among the greatest albums of all time.
