Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here
Why the 1975 Classic Rock Music Album Is an All-time Best Seller
Much is made of Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd's 1973 album that is one of the best-selling of all time. But Wish You Were Here is much, much better.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
In 1973, Pink Floyd released a little album called Dark Side of the Moon. Lo and behold, it became a huge hit, and the band retreated for two years before appearing again in 1975 with Wish You Were Here. Upon first glance at the result of their toil one will notice that only five tracks appear. So one might think – and not unreasonably – that Wish You Were Here could lack substance.
Well, it doesn’t.
Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Part One)
This is the first of a two-part tribute to Syd Barrett (notice: "Shine on You Crazy Diamond"), a founding member who was no longer with the band. It’s a beautifully orchestrated 13 and a half minute song, capped with a Hammond organ intro and a closing saxophone solo. 9 minutes lapse before vocals are ever heard, and the lyrics are a reclamation of a man long gone: "Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun.../ Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky." Gilmour's guitar glistens with reverb throughout the song, leading into the graceful denouement of the fading saxophone solo that segues into the next track.
Welcome to the Machine
Though it’s not a particularly original metaphor, "Machine" is well-handled as an exercise of precision. Heavy use of synths and tape effects, and the mechanization of Gilmour's vocals, enhance the theme of detached greed and add a melodic menace to lyrics like "What did you dream? It's all right, we told you what to dream." This track is the harshest and most uncompromising song on the album, but it portrays only one take on the music industry; the other side was supplied as the third track.
Have a Cigar
"Have a Cigar" is at the same time dark in theme and bitingly funny. A funk-rock riff leads off the song, with the accompaniment of piano and a straightforward bassline. A friend of the band, Roy Harper, took over vocals for the song, and his booming voice sharply milks the satirical lyrics for all they're worth. The song is about a money-hungry record executive trying to sign a band and then, after good sales, capitalize on their success. This was Waters at his sharpest: "The band is just fantastic, that is really what I think/ Oh by the way, which one's Pink?" A soaring solo by Gilmour starts to fade at its climax, and at the end the sound collapses to background music before a radio dial is heard changing the station.
Wish You Were Here
That station-changing sound effect is continued through the first 15 seconds of "Wish You Were Here," the title track on the album, and the best one, too. An understated, almost offhand riff intros the song, as if a guitarist is playing along with the song on the radio. Lyrically, "Wish You Were Here" is an unaffected and plaintively vulnerable song about alienation, and it’s filled with poetic statements, like "Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?” before its plaintive cry "We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl."
Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Part Two)
Then, at last, part two of "Shine on You Crazy Diamond," titled Parts 6-9, begins. Bass opens the song, leading into the first of many guitar solos on this song. Gilmour plays a 3-minute solo on a lap steel guitar before the time signature changes and vocals kick in at the 5-minute mark. "Nobody knows where you are, how near or how far/ Shine on you crazy diamond." The lyrics are identical in theme to the first part, a third verse to compliment part one's two. The song concludes wonderfully, the arrangement of drums and keyboard creating a very dense sound before the song – and album – ends with the keyboards slowly fading out.
Pink Floyd's album succeeds so miraculously because of its dichotomous approach in musicality and lyricism. Its music is filled with atmospherics and mood, a fully-realized landscape of melody traversed by the band; but its lyrics are mindful without being self-indulgent, and they ask philosophical questions while seeking not answers but simply solidarity in the collectivity of human experience. This blend of space and earth is complete and touches both on the ambition of humankind while remaining grounded in the humility of humanism.
Wish You Were Here is a great album, Pink Floyd’s masterpiece, and a great joy to listen to. It makes one feel alive like a human being ought to feel, imbued with wonder and always, always thoughtful of one’s fellows. After all, “we’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl.”
