Why I Love....

Just a nice thread idea on wakinglimb which inspired me to gush over Wish you were here.


Wish You Were Here





Squeezed between Pink Floyd's two tens of million selling and universally praised behemoths, 1973's Dark side of the moon and 1979's The Wall. Wish you were here is often overlooked by all but the most committed Floyd fans. Only more recognisable than Pink Floyd’s other overlooked classic from their 70’s heyday, Animals, thanks to the instantly recognisable title track Wish You Were Here.

As Bob said with Purple Rain it is probably not my favourite Pink Floyd album, that honour changes from week to week between the ‘big four’ (Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall). But as with Purple Rain sums up everything that is great about Prince, Wish You Were Here sums up everything that is great about Pink Floyd who are often, much like Prince, dizzyingly diverse in their sound.

From their earlier psychedelic drug induced ‘Barret era’ sound stretching from 1965 to 1971 with the release of Meddle. To their classic Prog Rock sound fusing Water’s stunning lyricism and Gilmour’s and Wright’s keen ear for a tune. And then the closing era of the ‘true’ Pink Floyd sound (Gilmour’s subsequent slaughter of the Pink Floyd name with Momentary Lapse of Reason and The Division Bell just doesn’t count. ) With Water’s ego leading the band to eventually become a vehicle for Water’s political critiques, first evident in Animals and finally overbearingly present in The Final Cut. It can be hard to know where to start.

Wish You Were Here, lying around about the middle of their discography draws everything from its surrounding albums. Everything that had made them great and everything that would continue to make them so. From the powerful instrumental and lyrical minimalism of Shine on you crazy Diamond Pt 1 - 5, which sets the theme for the rest of the album which as the title suggests is a theme of absence and lost relationships on a general wide reaching level and a very touchingly personal one with this I particular acting as an ode to the bands former leader Syd Barret


Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
You were caught on the crossfire of childhood and stardom,
blown on the steel breeze.
Come on you target for faraway laughter,
come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and shine!

Arguably some of Water’s best lyrics interlaced with some of Gilmours most emotional almost ‘vocal’ guitar playing which seems at times to mournfully reply to the questioning lyrics.

Parts 6- 9 carries the same message and neatly closes the album, Wish you were here carries the same theme and needs little description but its common Verse - Chorus layout squeezed into a relatively short (For Floyd anyway) running time of 5:40 minutes, which is a song structure that would become used more as the band became less experimental in its later years. it’s a heartfelt anthem that despite its massively airplay does not grow old. This and Comfortably Numb are both fine contributions to the karaoke industry but still maintain a strong message.

Have a Cigar and Welcome to the Machine also share a relatively normal ‘later’ Floyd song structure but are similarly brilliant, more scathing and satirical of the music industry which had now welcomed the band with open arms but still maintaining the theme of loss in a different sense.

Come in here, dear boy, have a cigar. you’re gonna go far, fly high,
You’re never gonna die, you’re gonna make it if you try they’re gonna love you.
Well Ive always had a deep respect, and I mean that most sincerely.
The band is just fantastic, that is really what I think. oh by the way,
Which ones pink?


I like to think of Wish You Were Here as the litmus paper for Pink Floyd, it draws from such a wide range of the bands sound that it is impossible to dislike completely, I mean the title track is worth the admission alone.