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 (5:40)
  5. Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Pts. VI-IX) (12:31)

Various re-issues simply list both "Shine On You Crazy Diamond's as "Part 1" and "Part 2", respectively.

[edit] Review

[edit] Credits

  • David Gilmour – Vocals, guitars, lap steel guitar, EMS Synthi AKS, additional bass guitar, additional keyboards, tape effects.
  • Roger Waters – Vocals, bass guitar, additional guitar, VCS3, tape effects.
  • Richard Wright – Keyboards, VCS3, background vocals
  • Nick Mason – Drums, percussion, tape effects

with

plus

  • Brian Humphries – Engineer
  • 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 is largely a tribute to Pink Floyd's former guitarist and chief songwriter, Syd Barrett. Barrett's mental illness and erratic behaviour made it impossible for him to contribute effectively to the band after the album A Saucerful of Secrets.
  • Originally, Wish You Were Here was to consist of three songs that the band had been playing live over the previous two years: "Shine On", "Gotta Be Crazy" and "Raving and Drooling". "Shine On" was preserved as "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", while Roger Waters decided to drop the other two, which later became, respectively, "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 success of The Dark Side Of The Moon and also because Capitol Records in America underpromoted the band prior to Dark Side.
  • Wish You Were Here would be the last Pink Floyd album to see a writing credit for Richard Wright until The Division Bell in 1994, and essentially the last Pink Floyd album where the whole band actively contributed to the process of creation.
  • 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 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 5 June 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 point. Echoing Barrett's presence, Rick 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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