Shine On You Crazy Diamond

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"Shine On You Crazy Diamond"
"Shine On You Crazy Diamond" cover
Song by Pink Floyd
from the album Wish You Were Here
Released 15 September 1975
Recorded January – July 1975
Genre Rock, Progressive Rock
Length 26 min 05 s
(all parts)
13 min 34 s
(Parts I–V)
12 min 31 s
(Parts VI–IX)
Label Capitol Records
Writer(s) Wright, Waters, Gilmour
Producer(s) Pink Floyd
Wish You Were Here track listing

----
Wish You Were Here
(4)		 "Shine On You Crazy Diamond"
(1/5)		 Welcome to the Machine
(2)
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"Shine On You Crazy Diamond" is a nine-part Pink Floyd composition with lyrics written by Roger Waters and music written by Waters, Richard Wright, and David Gilmour. It was first performed on their 1974 tour.[1] It was recorded for the 1975 concept album Wish You Were Here. The song was intended to be a side-long composition like "Atom Heart Mother (suite)" and "Echoes," but the song grew longer than a single side of vinyl would allow. It was split into two parts and used to bookend the album. Both parts make up the longest Pink Floyd song ever recorded.

The composition is a tribute to former band member Syd Barrett. Lyrics such as "Remember when you were young?/You shone like the sun" show strong appreciation for the contributions Barrett made to the band. The song's title also echoes Syd's name: Shine On You crazy Diamond. The word "Diamond" in this context possibly corresponds to "Diamonds" in The Beatles' classic "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", perhaps a reference to Barrett's struggle with LSD, as well as a reference to another song that supposedly spells out a three-letter message.

Contents

[edit] Recording

There were two strange occurrences during making of the Wish You Were Here album, both involving the song "Shine On You Crazy Diamond". According to David Gilmour and Nick Mason of Pink Floyd, on the "Wish You Were Here" episode of In the Studio with Redbeard, the band recorded a satisfactory take, but because of a new mixing console which was installed at Abbey Road, excessive echo from the other instruments all over the drums caused the band to re-record it. Nick Mason stated "With the invention of 16 track and 2-inch tape there was the belief for quite awhile that there would be something wrong with editing tape that big. Consequently whenever we played these pieces, they had to be played from beginning to end. Particularly for Roger Waters and myself being the rhythm section, which was laid down first, this was (chuckling) fairly tough business because the whole thing had to be sort of right".

The other strange occurrence happened during the mixing of the song when an obese and bald Syd Barrett was lurking around Abbey Road Studios (see Trivia).

[edit] Parts I–V

Part I (Wright, Waters, Gilmour; from :00 – 3:55) begins with the fading-in of a dense synthesizer pad created with EMS VCS 3, an ARP Solina, a Hammond organ and the sound of wet fingers running around the rims of wine glasses filled with various amounts of water (recycled from an earlier project known as Household Objects). This is followed by plaintive Minimoog passages and a lengthy guitar solo played by David Gilmour on a Fender Stratocaster (neck and middle pickups) using a slightly overdriven sound and reverb. The part ends with the synth pad fading into the background.

Part II (Gilmour, Waters, Wright; from 3:55 – 6:28) begins with a four-note theme repeated throughout much of the entire section. This part includes a second solo by Gilmour. Nick Mason starts his drumming after the fourth runthrough of the four note theme. This theme is sometimes referred to as Syd's Theme.

Part III (Waters, Gilmour, Wright; from 6:29 – 8:43) begins with a Minimoog synthesizer solo by Richard Wright. This part includes a third Gilmour guitar solo which was bluesy in tone. When performed on the Animals tour, Gilmour added distortion to the guitar for this solo.

Part IV (Gilmour, Wright, Waters; from 8:44 – 11:10) Roger Waters is on lead vocals and David Gilmour, Richard Wright and female backing vocalists on harmonies.

Part V (Waters, from 11:11 – 13:34) has 2 guitars repeating a riff for about 1 minute. A baritone saxophone overlays the sounds, played by Dick Parry. It ends as the saxophones change from a baritone saxophone to an tenor saxophone. After, the tempo speeds up the saxophone, and eventually drops the guitar and drums and opens to a tenor saxophone solo accompanied by an ARP string synthesizer keyboard sound and an arpeggio guitar riff that fades into the background. A machine-like hum fades in and segues into "Welcome to the Machine".

[edit] Parts VI–IX

Part VI (Wright, Waters, Gilmour; from :00 – 5:00) begins with a howling wind from the preceding song "Wish You Were Here". As the wind fades away, David Gilmour comes in on the bass guitar. Roger Waters adds another bass guitar with a continuing riff pattern. Then Rick Wright comes in playing an ARP String Ensemble Synthesizer and after a few measures, several rhythm guitar parts (Gilmour would play the power chord rhythm part using his black Fender Stratocaster before switching to lap steel guitar for the solo in live performances in 1974 to 1977. Snowy White did the rhythm guitar parts on this track on the band's 1977 "In the Flesh" tour) and drums come in, a Minimoog Synthesizer comes in to play the opening solo. At the two minute mark, Wright's Minimoog and Gilmour's lap steel guitar play notes in unison before Gilmour does a lap steel guitar solo (the lap steel had open E minor tuning) with some counterpointing from Wright's synthesizers with tempo not present in the other parts of the song. It lasts for about 3 minutes (4 minutes when played on the band's "In the Flesh" tour) and Gilmour in each section would play an octave higher than the previous and the highest note he hit on the lap steel/slide solo was a B flat almost three octaves above middle C (one show in Cleveland on the tour he hit a G that was three octaves above middle C) and then descended the notes before the song's main tune and guitar solo from part 4 plays (which was played by Snowy White in live performances on Pink Floyd's 1977 tour so David Gilmour could switch from lap steel guitar back to his Fender Stratocaster) plays and the beats slows to bring in the lyrics. This is the last time a lap steel guitar was played in a Roger Waters Pink Floyd song.

Part VII (Waters, Gilmour, Wright; from 5:01 – 6:05) contains the vocal sections, almost identical to part IV through half the length before beginning the segue into part VIII.

Part VIII (Gilmour, Wright, Waters; from 6:05 – 9:05) brings in Roger Waters to play a second electric guitar for a high noted sound riff while Gilmour plays the arpeggio riff that bridges parts 7 to 8. A neat progression of beats play for about 2 minutes before very slowly fading into the background as a continuous single keyboard note fades in around the 9 minute mark. When this section was played live on the band's 1977 "In The Flesh" tour, David Gilmour and Snowy White would be trading guitar solos in a duet (or known as the battle between Gilmour's black with white pick-ups Strat and Snowy's Goldtop Gibson Les Paul) which would extend this section upwards to between 5 and 10 minutes.

Part IX (Wright, from 9:05 – 12:31) is played in four-four time. David Gilmour in an interview described Part IX as "a slow 4/4 funeral march... the parting musical eulogy to Syd". The drums play for half of this part, and the keyboard plays for the final minute of the song before fading out. On the fade out, you can hear a short part of the melody of "See Emily Play" (at 12:07), one of Syd Barrett's signature Pink Floyd songs. When played live on the 1977 tour, the piano plays the chords on its own before the synthesizer solo was slowly changed from a synthesizer solo (early part of European leg) into half synthesizer and harmony guitar solo by Gilmour (higher notes) and White (lower notes) (on the end of the European leg and April and May, 1977 US performances) and then first a bluesy Gilmour solo followed by a harmony guitar solo by Gilmour (higher notes) and White (lower notes) (on the June and July, 1977 US performances) finally before ending with the synthesizer solo as on record.

[edit] Trivia

  • Some CD releases of Wish You Were Here list the tracks as "Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Part 1" and "Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Part 2". These versions contain the same music as other versions listed as "Parts I–V" and "Parts "VI–IX".
  • In a famous anecdote, a heavyset man with a completely shaved head and eyebrows wandered into the studio while the band was recording "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", although Nick Mason has since stated that he's not entirely certain whether this was the particular song being recorded when the man was in the studio. The band could not recognise him for some time, when suddenly one of them realised it was Syd Barrett. At that time, Barrett had gained a lot of weight and had shaved off all of his hair, including his eyebrows, and his ex-bandmates did not at first recognize him. Eventually, they realized who he was and Roger Waters was so distressed that he was reduced to tears. Someone asked to play the song again and Barrett said a second playback wasn't needed when they'd just heard it. Apparently, "Wish You Were Here" was also played, and when asked what he thought, Barrett said it sounded a "bit old". He was greeted enthusiastically by the band but subsequently slipped away during the impromptu party for David Gilmour's wedding (which was, coincidentally, also on that day).[2] It was the last time any of the other band members saw him.[3] Gilmour recently confirmed this story, although he could not recall which song they were working on when Syd showed up.[4]
  • In March 2005, Q magazine placed "Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Parts I–V" at number 25 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks.

[edit] Live performances

The song was first performed on a French tour in June of 1974 as "Shine On". The song was first introduced as "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" on the British tour in November of 1974. The song was originally performed as one whole suite with some of the parts differing from the album versions with samplings of Syd's solo song "Dark Globe" during the opening of the song.

The multi-part version of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" was first performed on the band's 1975 North American tour with "Have a Cigar" thrown into the middle of the piece. The 1975 versions were close to the final versions except parts one and nine were still not refined yet.

The band performed the whole 9-part "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" as part of the Wish You Were Here portion of their 1977 In the Flesh tour, with extra musicians Snowy White on guitar and backing vocals and Dick Parry on saxophones.

Part 1 mirrored the album version with Gilmour and Wright playing some parts of their guitar and synthesizer solos in a different way. Part 2's intro (or Syd's theme) was a little longer and Gilmour's guitar solos would vary night to night. Parts 3, 4 and 5 were as performed on the album although Wright, Gilmour and Parry would change up their respective instrument solo deliveries from parts 3 and 5 respectively from night to night. Gilmour added distortion to his guitar solo from Part 3 for these performances.

Part 6 had a longer intro and longer lap steel solo from Gilmour. Touring guitarist Snowy White played rhythm guitar and did the guitar solo from Part 4 so Gilmour could switch guitars (from his red Janson lap steel guitar back to his black with white pickup Fender Stratocaster which Gilmour began the track with). Part 7 was like it was on the album (except on the final performance in Montreal, Roger Waters changed some of the lyrics like "Nobody Knows Where You Are" to "Nobody Knows Where We Are" and "Pile on many more layers" to "Pile on many more years"). Part 8 was longer and was now guitar solos from Gilmour and White unlike the album version (where it was a keyboard solo) and this section would be between three and ten minutes longer than the studio versions. Part 9 started with a long piano intro from Wright before what was initially a synth solo (played either by a roadie or Dick Parry) with some lap steel accompaniment from Gilmour. As the tour progressed to last of European shows and the first American leg, Part 9 changed into a half synthesizer half harmony lead guitar solo from Gilmour (higher harmonies) and White (lower harmonies). The last US leg had a bluesy guitar solo from Gilmour after the piano started the section and then the harmony guitar solos before ending like on the original album with a Wright keyboard solo and a mirror ball was risen from behind the stage to in front of Mr. Screen. Then the band would say "good night" before the encores.

Parts 1–5 of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" became a staple of Pink Floyd's live performances from 1987 until 1994. The track opened shows for the remainder of the A Momentary Lapse of Reason and Delicate Sound of Thunder tours of 1987/88/89 and the tour closing performance at Knebworth in 1990.

The track would then open the second half of the shows on the group's 1994 The Division Bell tour except on shows where all of Dark Side of the Moon was performed when "Shine On" opened the first half and in the last month and a half of the tour the band added part 7 to Parts 1–5.

Most recently, David Gilmour performed almost the whole suite (save parts 8 and 9) at his 2001 and 2002 semi-unplugged concerts (which were documented on his 2002 David Gilmour in Concert DVD) and has performed Parts 1–5 (in a new arrangement) on his 2006 "On an Island" solo tour.

Roger Waters has also performed the song on his 1999 and 2000 tours documented on his In the Flesh Live album and DVD which was a condensed parts 1–7. Part 6 on these performances had a lap steel solo from Jon Carin then guitar solos from Doyle Bramhall II and Snowy White. Then on Waters' 2002 tour, he played all nine parts like on record (although part 8 was shortened). Recently, a condensed version of parts 1–5 has appeared on Waters' 2006 The Dark Side of the Moon Live tour.

[edit] Credits

Recorded January to July 1975 at Abbey Road Studios, London.

[edit] Edited versions

Two different edited versions of the composition have appeared on compilation albums.

[edit] A Collection of Great Dance Songs

The version on the compilation album A Collection of Great Dance Songs was cut significantly. Parts III, V, VI, VIII and IX were dropped completely. Parts IV and VII are linked by the guitar solo from part IV. Lastly, the riff that links Parts VII and VIII is repeated several times as the song segues into the introductory radio passage from "Wish You Were Here".

[edit] Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd

The version on the compilation album Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd was also cut significantly. The guitar solo on Part III was dropped. Part VI was shortened. Parts VIII and IX were dropped completely. Linking parts V and VI is the sound of wind. These are the same wind effects used to bridge "Wish You Were Here" to Part VI of "Diamond" on the original LP. Finally, the riff that links Parts VII and VIII is repeated several times as the song segues into the introductory passage of clocks of "Time".

[edit] Sample

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.geocities.com/cgwhitman2/pf/pf1974.html
  2. ^ "Shine On!", Total Guitar, September 1996
  3. ^ David Gilmour interview, "Q Magazine", June 1999
  4. ^ La Repubblica, 3 February 2006, translation here

[edit] External links

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