Pink Floyd, like the very best bands of the classic rock era, relied on self-mythology just as much as on songs. With “Wish You Were Here,” they made progressive-rock that was often minimalistic and used their former leader, Syd Barrett, as the symbol for the group’s ambitions and losses.
“Wish You Were Here” managed the seemingly impossible task of following up on the success of “Dark Side of the Moon.” It was a colossally successful album that lodged itself into the collective consciousness of serious rock fans. However, whether it is overrated is a matter worth discussing today in this revised review of the album.
From Avant-Garde Psychedelia to Stadium Rock
Pink Floyd‘s story is one of the most bizarre in rock’s notoriously murky history. The group was started by architecture students Roger Waters and Nick Mason. Fellow student Richard Wright joined them, as did Syd Barrett, a friend of Waters who had just arrived in London with the goal of studying arts.
Barrett’s influence shaped the early sound and image of the band. While bands like The Beatles were already dabbling in psychedelics and letting those influence their sound, Pink Floyd took things to their logical conclusion. In the early 1960s the group was the most extreme psychedelic band in the London underground. They were deeply loved by a small minority.
But such experiments inevitably lead to the downfall of the band’s creative genius, Syd Barrett. Becoming unreliable and unpredictable, much like Fleetwood Mac’s Peter Green, another victim of LSD consumption, Waters and the band opted to make changes.
They brought in David Gilmour, another friend of Barrett’s. First, Gilmour was introduced as a second guitar player but eventually replaced the man who had penned “See Emily Play” entirely.
David Gilmour Replaces Syd Barrett
Few thought Pink Floyd would survive without Barrett. Early releases didn’t give many reasons to contradict those opinions. The songwriting was no longer on the same level. Instead, the band was retreating further into mysterious, otherworldly musical experimentations.
Eventually, the avant-garde sounds were married to songs. All of the band members attempted to write. But it was Waters, the more ambitious of the bunch, who also had the sharpest pen. His lyrics and worldview shaped a series of powerful albums culminating in the concept record “Dark Side of the Moon.”
“Dark Side of the Moon” turned Pink Floyd into a very successful group, the kind that could soon play its newer set of prog-rock songs to arena-filling audiences.
It had been a strange road. Nearly eight years after they’d parted ways with Syd Barrett, the singer was back on the minds of the musicians. Had they betrayed him, or had the divorce been inevitable? And were they condemned to follow him down the dark path on which he’d been led? These ideas were the basis for “Wish You Were Here.”
“Wish You Were Here” Review
Progressive-rock bands loved to play and loved to let audiences know they could play. Adding as many notes to songs seemed like a requirement. Writing complex, long songs was the way to prove your adherence to the musical movement.
“Wish You Were Here,” on the other hand, begins with a four-note, slightly dissonant guitar riff. The same riff is quoted again and again throughout record, helping give the songs cohesion.
“Wish You Were Here” is also a successful compromise. Roger Waters’ lyrics are biting, melancholy-filled poems. But they are balanced by extended instrumental pieces produced by Alan Parsons that hardly ever sound boring, something that was not always a guarantee with Pink Floyd’s past music.
“Shine on You Crazy Diamond” is the central point of the album. A 25-minute piece inspired largely by Syd Barrett’s incredible abilities and sad downfall, the song is cleverly split into two halves. One begins the album; another ends it.
Could the music have been some kind of siren song? During the album’s recording, Syd Barrett dropped by the studio. His physical appearance had changed so much that his former band members could not recognize him. It was the first and last time they met under these circumstances.
A Gold Standard for Recorded Music
“Shine on You Crazy Diamond” is also the sound of 1970s recording techniques reaching their peak. The warmth of the recording and the expressive playing created a standard that most of the serious rock groups of the future would try, and usually fail, to replicate.
The other three songs are not about Barrett. They are about Waters’ anxiety with being a rockstar and with ending up as mentally drained and confused as his friend.
“Welcome to the Machine” is another song about chasing the kinds of dreams that lead to one’s eventual loss of identity. “Have a Cigar” has Roy Harper marvelously play-acting a record exec pitching a deal to Pink of Pink Floyd.
And, on the album’s best and most famous song, “Wish You Were Here,” David Gilmour excellently sings and scats along to his guitar solo while delivering Waters’ words about feeling disconnected from the world. It’s Waters himself who wishes he and the others were mentally there for their shared success.
Legacy of “Wish You Were Here”
Unpredictably, “Wish You Were Here” was nearly as big of a success as “Dark Side of the Moon.” It helped establish Pink Floyd as one of the biggest, most commercially successful rock bands of the 1970s.
This Pink Floyd line-up didn’t have much steam in it, though. They made three albums, “The Wall” being another masterpiece. The group and, more importantly, the trademark would be reactivated in the 1980s, but not with Roger Waters in the fold
While music critics of the 1970s had doubts, “Wish You Were Here” has become nearly universally praised. Few lists of the best albums of all time do not include it. Rolling Stone, Prog, and Ultimate Classic Rock all agree.
Pink Floyd became one of the most commercially successful bands of all time, selling over 250 million copies worldwide. “Wish You Were Here” is the third-best-selling album in the catalog, having moved 23 million units.
And while two of the surviving members, David Gilmour and Roger Waters might not be able to stand each other long enough to discuss its legacy together, clearly, Pink Floyd’s discography created something of a golden standard for studio recorded rock music.
