Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd song)

"Wish You Were Here" is the title track on Pink Floyd's 1975 album Wish You Were Here.^[1][2] The song's lyrics encompass writer Roger Waters' feelings of alienation from other people. Like most of the album, it refers to former Pink Floyd member Syd Barrett and his breakdown. David Gilmour and Roger Waters collaborated to write the music.

In 2004, the song was ranked #316 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.^[3]

Composition

In the original album version, the song segues from "Have a Cigar" as if a radio had been tuned away from one station, through several others (including a radio play and one playing Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony), and finally to a new station where "Wish You Were Here" is beginning.^[4] The radio was recorded from Gilmour's car radio. Gilmour performed the intro on a twelve-string guitar, processed to sound like it was playing through an old transistor radio, and then overdubbed a fuller-sounding acoustic guitar solo. This passage was mixed to sound as though the guitarist was sitting in a room, playing along with the radio; it also contains a whine that slowly changes pitch—emulating the heterodyne between two drifting AM radio signals.

The intro riff is repeated several times and reprised when Gilmour plays further solos with scat singing accompaniment. At the end of the recorded song, the final solo crossfades with wind sound effects (reminiscent of "One of These Days" from the 1971 album Meddle), and finally segues into the second section of the multi-part suite "Shine On You Crazy Diamond".

The song borrows the imagery of a "steel rail" from Syd Barrett's solo song, "If It's in You", from The Madcap Laughs album.

Live performances

"Wish You Were Here" made its stage debut on the band's 1977 tour, which featured a performance of the entire album at every show. It was not played live by the band for nearly ten years after this, yet became a concert staple after its reappearance in 1987 — and was performed at nearly all subsequent Pink Floyd concerts. In the original 1977 concert performances, Gilmour would play his Fender Stratocaster instead of acoustic guitar whilst Snowy White played a 12-string Ovation acoustic guitar. At some of these shows (all of the US shows, notably), Mason tuned an actual transistor radio on stage to a local radio station, seguing into the pre-recorded part from the album to start the song and Rick Wright would perform an extended piano coda as the wind effects played. When Pink Floyd were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,^[5] Gilmour and Wright (Mason was in the audience) performed the song with the assistance of their presenter Billy Corgan on rhythm guitar.

Other recorded versions by Pink Floyd

"Wish You Were Here" later appeared as the fifth track on A Collection of Great Dance Songs (with the radio intro following the end of a heavily edited "Shine On You Crazy Diamond") and as the 23rd track on the Echoes compilation (with the radio intro following "Arnold Layne", and at the end crossfading with "Jugband Blues").

A live recording included on the 1995 live album P•U•L•S•E was issued as a single/EP. The cover of the EP features two men whose faces are distorted by fish bowls, referring to the line "We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year". As of August 2011, this is the last single released by Pink Floyd (although promos of "Echoes", "Young Lust" and "Money" (2003 edit for the 30th anniversary re-issue of The Dark Side of the Moon) were made available to the press and radio stations).

In 2005, Waters and Eric Clapton performed the song at the Tsunami Aid concert, and in 2005's Live 8, Waters rejoined his former bandmates in London to perform it, along with 3 other classic Pink Floyd songs.^[6][7]

As part of the 2011 re-release of the entire Pink Floyd catalog, the Immersion and Experience versions of the Wish You Were Here album include an alternate version of the song which includes a violin part played by Stephane Grappelli, which was not used on the album version, though a tiny bit of the violin part can be heard as the song fades out.

Personnel

• Roger Waters — Fender bass guitar, tape effects
• David Gilmour — 6- and 12-string acoustic guitars, pedal steel guitar, tape effects, lead and backing vocals
• Richard Wright — Steinway piano, Minimoog
• Nick Mason — drums, tape effects
• Stephane Grappelli — violin (There is a brief piece of violin playing at the end of the track which was subsequently all but drowned out by the addition of the wind effects, although if you listen closely or turn the volume up louder, starting at the 5:21 mark, the barely-audible violin can be heard. Violinist Stephane Grappelli was recording in a downstairs studio, and Gilmour had suggested that there be a little "country fiddle" at the end of the song. Grappelli duly obliged, although because his contribution is barely audible, the band decided not to credit him for it in the sleeve notes. According to Waters, he received the agreed fee of £300, however.)^[8]

Recorded between January and July 1975 at Abbey Road Studios, London.

Quotes

Wyclef Jean version

"Wish You Were Here" served as the fourth and final single from Wyclef Jean's second studio album, The Ecleftic: 2 Sides II a Book. The track was released in December 2001, peaking at #2 on the UK Singles Chart.^[10]

UK CD Single (672156 2)

1. "Wish You Were Here" (Radio Edit) – 4:04
2. "No Woman, No Cry" (Live Version) – 4:33
3. "911" (Live Version) – 4:23
4. "Wish You Were Here" (Video) – 4:25

UK Cassette (672156 5)

1. "Wish You Were Here" (LP Version) – 4:25
2. "Perfect Gentleman" (Remix Radio Edit) – 3:59

Tangerine Dream cover

Electronic group Tangerine Dream recorded a cover on their CD Under Cover – Chapter One.

References