Music
 

Wish You Were Here

From Pink Floyd

Album cover
Original outer packaging

Title: Wish You Were Here
Artist: Pink Floyd
Released: September 15, 1975
Total Length: 44:28
Label: Harvest, EMI (UK), Columbia, Capitol (US)

Contents

[edit] Track Listing

  1. Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Pts. I-V) (13:30)
  2. Welcome To The Machine (7:31)
  3. Have A Cigar (5:08)
  4. Wish You Were Here (The Song) (5:40)
  5. Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Pts. VI-IX) (12:31)

Some re-issues list both parts of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" as "Part 1" and "Part 2".

[edit] Review

[edit] Credits

  • David Gilmour – Vocals, guitars, lap steel, EMS Synthi AKS, additional bass, keyboards, tape effects
  • Roger Waters – Vocals, bass, additional guitar, VCS 3, tape effects
  • Richard Wright – Keyboards, VCS 3, backing vocals
  • Nick Mason – Drums, percussion, tape effects

with

  • Peter Christopherson – Design Assistant (see Hipgnosis)
  • Peter James – Engineer, Assistant Engineer
  • Hipgnosis – Design, Photography
  • Storm Thorgerson – Re-design
  • Phil Taylor – Additional Photography (Remaster)
  • Jill Furmanovsky – Additional Photography (Remaster)
  • George Hardie – Illustrations
  • Richard Manning – Design Assistant
  • Howard Bartrop – Design Assistant
  • Jeff Smith – Design Assistant
  • James Guthrie; Remastering producer
  • Doug Sax; Remastering
  • Gerald Scarfe; Welcome To The Machine Music Video

[edit] Info

  • The album's largely a tribute to Syd Barrett. Barrett's mental illness and erratic behavior made it impossible for him to contribute effectively to the band after A Saucerful Of Secrets.
  • Originally, this was to consist of 3 songs that Pink Floyd were playing live over the last two years: "Shine On", "You Gotta Be Crazy", and "Raving And Drooling". "Shine On" was preserved as "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", while the other two became "Dogs", and "Sheep" on Animals.
  • Wish You Were Here was also Pink Floyd's first album with their new label Columbia Records for most of the world, save Europe (where they remained with EMI), which they signed with in 1973 for a reported $1 million after The Dark Side Of The Moon's success and also because Capitol Records underpromoted them in America prior to The Dark Side Of The Moon.
  • Wish You Were Here is the last album to see a credit for Wright until The Division Bell, and essentially the last album where the whole band actively contributed when Waters was still a member.
  • In 1998, Q magazine readers voted Wish You Were Here the 34th greatest album of all time.
  • In 2003, the album was ranked number 209 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. This happened twenty-eight years after the magazine initially panned and trashed the recording. Reviewer Ben Edmonds wrote in the November 6, 1975 issue "Passion is everything of which Pink Floyd is devoid."
  • Wish You Were Here peaked at #1 on Billboard's USA Pop Albums chart (where it stayed for two weeks in October, 1975) and stayed on the charts for a year. The album has, to date, sold over six million copies in the US and was certified Gold on September 17, 1975 in the US and as Sextuple Platinum in the US on May 16, 1997 by the R.I.A.A.
  • According to the book A Saucerful Of Secrets: The Pink Floyd Odyssey, Barrett himself actually turned up at the studio in the middle of a recording session of the backing vocals for Shine On You Crazy Diamond on June 5, 1975, which was also the day David Gilmour married his first wife, Ginger. He arrived unannounced and had put on so much weight that some of the band did not recognise him at first. He had also shaved off all his hair, including his eyebrows (which was alluded to in The Wall). Jerry Shirley mistook him for a Hare Krishna devotee. Others were close to tears: Waters later confided that he cried. They played a song for him (Mason says he doesn't remember which but mentions some "legends" alluding that it was "Shine On You Crazy Diamond"). When they were done, Barrett sat motionless. When someone said to play it again, Syd asked what would be the point, as they had already just heard it. They also played him "Wish You Were Here", and asked him what he thought, to which he replied, "Sounds a bit old". He asked at one point if there was anything he could do and that he was available if needed. Later on, one of the band's technicians, Phil Taylor, saw Syd looking for a lift. Avoiding an awkward situation, Taylor ducked down in the car as he passed and it is not known how Barrett managed to get back home. Barrett hadn't been seen by the band in five years, and wasn't seen again after that. Echoing Syd's presence, Richard Wright plays a subtle refrain from "See Emily Play" in the final seconds of the album.
  • In a July 2006 interview with a New York City radio station before Barrett's death, Gilmour indicated he had not talked with Barrett since 1975.
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