Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd album)

Wish You Were Here is the ninth studio album by the English rock band Pink Floyd, released on 12 September 1975 through Harvest Records in the United Kingdom and a day later in the United States through Columbia Records, as the band's first album for the label. Based on material composed while performing in Europe, Wish You Were Here was recorded over numerous sessions throughout 1975 at EMI Studios in London.

The lyrics express longing, alienation, and sardonic criticism of the music industry. The bulk of the album is taken up by "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", a nine-part tribute to Syd Barrett, a Pink Floyd co-founder who had left seven years earlier due to his deteriorating mental health; Barrett coincidentally visited the studio during recording. As with their previous release, The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), Pink Floyd employed studio effects and synthesisers. Guest singers included Roy Harper, who sang lead on "Have a Cigar", and Venetta Fields, who sang backing vocals on "Shine On You Crazy Diamond". To promote the album, Pink Floyd released the double A-side single "Have a Cigar" / "Welcome to the Machine".

Wish You Were Here topped charts in several countries, including the UK Albums Chart and US Billboard 200. It was certified gold in the UK and US in its year of release, and by 2004, it had sold an estimated 13 million copies worldwide. Upon release, it received mixed reviews from critics, who found its music "uninspiring" and "inferior" to the group's previous work. However, it has later been acclaimed as one of the greatest albums of the 1970s and of all time, with Rolling Stone ranking it number 264 in their 2020 revision of their "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list. Keyboardist Richard Wright, drummer Nick Mason, and guitarist David Gilmour have cited it as their favourite Pink Floyd album, while bassist Roger Waters called it their "most complete" album.

Background

In 1974, Pink Floyd sketched out three new songs, "Raving and Drooling", "You Gotta Be Crazy", and "Shine On You Crazy Diamond". These songs were performed during a series of concerts in France and England, the band's first tour since 1973's The Dark Side of the Moon. As Pink Floyd had never employed a publicist and kept themselves distant from the press, their relationship with the media began to sour. Nick Mason said later that a critical NME review by Nick Kent, who Mason felt preferred the band's earlier music, may have influenced the band to return to the studio during the first week of 1975.

Concept

Wish You Were Here is the second Pink Floyd album with a conceptual theme, mostly at Roger Waters' direction, reflecting his feeling that the previous communal structure of the band had disappeared in favour of more professional musicianship. The album begins with a long instrumental introduction shifting from ambient music to the main refrain of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", the lyrics of which were penned as a tribute to Syd Barrett, whose mental breakdown had forced him to leave the group seven years earlier.

Wish You Were Here also features lyrical criticism of the rock music industry and the then-recent mainstream perception of the band. "Shine On" crosses seamlessly into "Welcome to the Machine", a song that begins with an opening door (described by Waters as a symbol of musical discovery and progress betrayed by a music industry more interested in greed and success) and ends with a party, the latter epitomising "the lack of contact and real feelings between people". Similarly, "Have a Cigar" scorns record industry "fat-cats" with the lyrics repeating a stream of clichés heard by rising newcomers in the industry, and including the question "by the way, which one's Pink?"; this was derived from an actual interaction with an agent who asked this of the band. The lyrics of the next song, "Wish You Were Here", relate both to Barrett's absence and to the dichotomy of Waters' character, with greed and ambition battling with compassion and idealism as the popularity of the band was growing.

Recording

thumb|right|alt=A number of cars are parked in the asphalt car-park of a two-storey white building. The building appears once to have been detached, but a two-storey extension is apparent, on the right side of the building. The ground floor contains three large sash windows, each with a small metal railing around the sill. The first floor contains four shorter sash windows. The decorative stonework around the windows and main entrance has been painted grey. Two chimney stacks are visible on the roof, at opposite ends. The staircase entrance to the building is bordered by metal railings. To the left of the image, a much larger brick building can be seen in the distance.|[[Abbey Road Studios, formerly EMI Studios]]

Alan Parsons, EMI staff engineer for Pink Floyd's previous studio album, The Dark Side of the Moon, declined to continue working with them due to the recent formation of his own group and working on their first album. Pink Floyd had worked with engineer Brian Humphries on More, recorded at Pye Studios, and again in 1974 when he replaced an inexperienced concert engineer. Humphries, being a stranger to EMI's Abbey Road set-up, encountered some early difficulties. On one occasion, Humphries inadvertently spoiled the backing tracks for "Shine On", a piece that Waters and drummer Nick Mason had spent many hours perfecting, with echo. The entire piece had to be re-recorded.

The sessions for Wish You Were Here at EMI's Studio Three (now Abbey Road Studios) lasted from January until July 1975, recording on four days each week from 2:30 pm until very late in the evening. The group found it difficult at first to devise any new material, especially as the success of The Dark Side of the Moon had left all four physically and emotionally drained. Keyboardist Richard Wright later described these sessions as "falling within a difficult period", and Waters recalled them as "torturous". Mason found the process of multi-track recording to be "tedious", while Gilmour was more interested in improving the band's existing material. Gilmour was also becoming increasingly frustrated with Mason, whose failing marriage had brought on a general malaise and sense of apathy, both of which interfered with his drumming. Gilmour had composed the phrase while improvising, but was encouraged by Waters' positive response to make it the focus of the song. A subtle refrain performed by Wright, lifted from "See Emily Play", is also audible towards the end. "Welcome to the Machine" and "Have a Cigar" were attacks on the music business, their lyrics working with "Shine On" to provide a summary of the rise and fall of Barrett; "Because I wanted to get as close as possible to what I felt ... that sort of indefinable, inevitable melancholy about the disappearance of Syd."

Syd Barrett's visit

On 5 June 1975, on the eve of the second North American leg of their Wish You Were Here Tour, Gilmour married his first wife, Ginger. That day, the band were completing the mix of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond"