Track Listing

1. Shine On You Crazy Diamond
2. Welcome To The Machine
3. Have A Cigar
4. Wish You Were Here
5. Shine on you crazy diamond pt.2

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #414 in Music
• Released on: 1994-08-01
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: .23 pounds

Amazon.co.uk Review
Wish You Were Here is a song cycle dedicated to Pink Floyd's original frontman, Syd Barrett, who'd flamed out years before: two grimly funny songs about the evils of the music business ("By the way, which one's Pink?"), and two long, touching ones about the band's vanished friend. The real star of the show, though, is the production: sparkling, convoluted, designed to sound deeply oh-wow under the influence--and pretty great sober too, with David Gilmour getting lots of space for his most lyrical guitar playing ever. And, though the album is big and ambitious, even bombastic, it somehow dodges being pretentious--the Barrett tributes are honest and heartfelt, beneath all the grand gestures and stereophonic trickery. --Douglas Wolk

CD Description
The breakthrough success of DARK SIDE OF THE MOON made WISHYOU WERE HERE a crucial follow-up in strictly commercial terms. Further pressure came from it being Pink Floyd's first recording for a new label, Columbia. Yet the demands on the band only provided Roger Waters with more fodder for his lyrics, which glanced at the band's roots as well as their new responsibilities.
The mechanised throb of a VCS3 synthesizer, fed through a repeat-echo unit, signals the opening bars of "Welcome To The Machine", a diatribe against an industry more concerned with money than creative music-making. "Have A Cigar" further establishes Waters' contempt by bringing in singer Roy Harper to play the role of a "faceless suit", who none-too-innocently asks, "Which one's Pink?" The remaining songs indirectly look back to the first casualty of PinkFloyd's growing fame, the group's founder, Syd Barrett.
The 20-minute-plus "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" has its roots in earlier pieces like "Atom Heart Mother Suite" and "Echoes". But rather than just another Floydian soundscape, its lyrics make it a paean to Barrett's genius and a requiem for his subsequent breakdown. The first five of the song's nine movements open the album with sax player Dick Parry wailing as effectively as he did on DARK SIDE. The final four sections, which close the album, form a reprise that starts with the sound of wind and David Gilmour's guitar screaming and crying. The band then settles into a laid-back jam that ends with Richard Wright's billowing synth delicately fading out.
The title track deals also with Barrett, as well as the tension the idealist Waters was feeling in battling the greedthat surrounded the band's success. The themes of disillusionment planted throughout WISH YOU WERE HERE would eventually sprout full-blown on THE WALL.

Customer Reviews

Wish They Were Here
Despite the daunting prospect of having to follow ‘Dark Side of The Moon’, ‘Wish You Were Here’ rises to the challenge admirably. What it lacks in dynamics and interplay it more than makes up for in tension and control.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the album’s first four minutes, where David Gilmour’s taut guitar and Rick Wright’s keyboard chords stretch the suspense to breaking point and beyond before Gilmour finally provides exquisite relief with a simple, unadorned four note arpeggio.

That sets the mournful tone of ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’, an epic 26-minute eulogy to Syd Barrett (a former member of Pink Floyd, put simply) that starts and bookends the album and is arguably the finest track the band have ever produced. While the ghost of Syd hovers above many a Floyd album, ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’ is the only track that is specifically about Syd, celebrating the genius that leaked into madness while mourning his loss to the band. Roger Waters’ lyrics and the band’s playing are so complimentary it hurts.

Between the two parts of the epic are two rants against the system – the acerbic ‘Welcome To The Machine’ and the humorously cynical ‘Have A Cigar’ (sung by Roy Harper) – and the simple, melancholic, acoustic title track which neatly sums up how the band were feeling at the time.

Despite Waters’ growing dominance over the band, ‘Wish You Were Here’ is still very much a Pink Floyd album, with all the instrumental elements contributing to the overall sound. It may not have the spark and fizz of ‘Dark Side of The Moon’, but in other ways it cuts deeper. For David Gilmour and Rick Wright, it’s their favourite Pink Floyd album.

One of the most beautiful rock albums ever.
Wish You Were Here really has to be listened to all the way through from start to finish in one sitting. Any other way just doesn't do it justice. David Gilmour's opening guitar notes on Shine On You Crazy Diamond ring out like cathedral bells and this was the inspiration for Roger Waters' haunting lyrical tribute to lost band member Syd Barrett. Welcome to the Machine is a gutsy attack on the recording industry and has to be heard just for the clarity of the stereo acoustic guitars ringing out over the swooshing synthesizers and rolling tympanies. Have A Cigar features Roy Harper on vocals and funky guitars and continues the disillusioned rock star theme. The absolute classic Wish You Were Here follows, with one of the best openings of any rock song ever produced. Shine On You Crazy Diamond returns to conclude the album. If there is a better album from this era, I'd like to know what it is. The packaging of this album (designed by long-time Pink Floyd cohort, Storm Thorgerson) is as equally as impressive as the music itself and likewise deserves to be studied at length. Although released in 1975, this album has not aged or become dated with the passing of time at all. Buy it.

a masterclass
It is probably true that in 2004 there is no real point buying any new music, because there is now such a backlog of innovative and influential music to tap into that you'll never be able to afford it all, or have time to listen to it all. Besides, guitar-based music has long since gone past the point where there doesn't seem to be anything new to create. There have been dozens of bands in the last decade who have been good at what they do, but they are not doing anything new or original. There is nowhere left to go. Things were different in the 60s and 70s, and Pink Floyd provide the easiest way to prove the point. They weren't always consistent but they were always doing something sparklingly different. Along with so many other bands of the period their music linked in with, and was a part-reflection of the huge social and cultural changes of the time. This provided it with the edge that will keep it alive for a very long time. Much has been said about 'rock music' being tired and decadent by the mid-70s, and although some of the bands that had been around since the 60s were churning out some pretty ordinary stuff, there is much evidence to suggest that musical creative forces in the UK/US were still in a healthy state prior to punk. This album was made in 1975 and remains a benchmark of songwriting and arrangement against which little has come close. 'Shine on...' drifts in on a wave of ambience before four of the most magical notes in contemporary music history issue forth from David Guilmour's stratocaster. It sends a shiver through me every time I hear it. Another reviewer suggested that you can only experience the album properly if you listen to it all the way through, and this is true. WYWH is the sum of its maginificent parts, and there's even a spot for Roy Harper! Whether you're an aspiring musician or someone who simply appreciates musical innovation and brilliance, this is a masterclass.