I’ve long been a disciple not so much of Pink Floyd, but of their seminal album Dark Side of the Moon. It is about the best example of a flawless album as there is in the world. But, truth be told, I wasn’t too familiar with much of Pink Floyd’s other efforts. Of course, I knew the popular songs like “The Wall”, “Echoes” and “Wish You Were Here”. However, when my good friend Diego recommended Wish You Were Here (the album) for my project, I knew it would be a good opportunity to see what else the band had to offer.
And I was not disappointed.
Like many of Pink Floyd’s projects, Wish You Were Here focuses on a central idea: the suite “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” – a musical homage to Syd Barrett, the former writer and lead singer of the band until 1968. The song itself is broken up into 9 distinct parts which bookend the other four tracks on the record.
“[A] perfect merger of the complex and simple…It tells a story about achieving something great, but then looking back and longing for those who were left behind.” (Diego Carrión)
The thing I enjoyed immediately was the sonic recognition of the instrumentation and lyricism I loved so well from Dark Side of the Moon, paired with the abstractness of 17 minute tracks like “Echoes” from Meddle, their effort prior to Dark Side.
The opening of the record, the first five segments of “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” really set you up for what’s to come – there’s a few minutes of ethereal synth tracking until David Gilmour’s telltale five-note theme finally rings out, before ushering in the rest of the band. The opening line, “Remember when you were young?/You shone like the sun…” is sung by Roger Waters with the very palpable jaded ache of someone who both mourns and defends someone they were once close to.
The next two tracks, “Welcome to the Machine” and “Have a Cigar” both pertain to the music industry – an industry the Floyd was beginning to disdain. One is a stark, cold, hallowing warning about how impersonal it could be and the latter a satirical jab at the executives that had only money on their minds.
That brings us to probably the most prolific track on the album, the one it was named after: “Wish You Were Here”. From it’s double-tracked guitar intro, we can already feel some of the loneliness incensed from the track’s title. Gilmour opens with “So. So you think you can tell…/Heaven from hell?” And here I go on a bit of a tangent.
There is something about songs that start with words like “so” that make them feel really personal. As if you were in the middle of a conversation with the person. There’s no set up or background – it just kind of launches into the thought at hand. And that’s really intimate to me.
Anyway.
The album closes out with the rest of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”, completing the cycle it started at the beginning.
This album is very much a beautiful piece of work. It captures the emotions the band had been holding on to about Barrett’s departure flawlessly, not only lyrically, but instrumentally as well. There is very much an atmosphere to the record, one which miraculously keeps your attention, instead of wearing itself out. Although it did not chart for as long as Dark Side (which was on Billboard for over 740 weeks!) it is a phenomenal album, and not one to be overlooked – though I doubt any Floyd aficionado would fail to tell you so.
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Released: September 12th, 1975
Suggested by: Diego Carrión
For project details and to suggest your own favorite album, visit the intro page.