Wish You Were Here

Certain Songs #1564: Pink Floyd – “Wish You Were Here”

June 19, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Wish You Were Here
Year: 1975

It was Live 8 when I realized it.

Somehow Ser Bob Geldof had talked Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Richard Wright and Nick Mason into to playing together for the first time in over two decades — shaking off or at least ignoring the humongous well of bad feelings that had accumulated in all of that time. It kinda felt like a miracle watching them. So after the requisite pair of songs from The Dark Side of The Moon, backup guitarist Tim Renwick starts playing the tinny guitar from the opening of “Wish You Were Here” — the conceit on the album being that someone is listening to “Have a Cigar” on the radio, wants to hear something else and while scanning the dial, lands upon “Wish You Were Here” (tough luck Pink Floyd Haters) — and Roger Waters addresses the crowd, because even he is caught up in the weirdness.

It’s pretty short, of course, but he talks about how much emotion playing with the other guys is raising inside of him, and dedicates “Wish You Were Here” to “Everyone who’s not here. Particularly, of course, for Syd.” Of course.

Certain Songs #1563: Pink Floyd – “Have a Cigar”

June 18, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Wish You Were Here
Year: 1975

. . .

One of the more underreported things in 1970s Pink Floyd history is the obvious existence of what I call the “Pink Floyd Vocal Transmogrifier,” a handy device that transforms the vocals of anybody who uses it into the lead singer of Pink Floyd.

This is why, to the casual listener, it’s nearly impossible to tell if it was Roger Waters or David Gilmour or even Richard Wright singing on any given Pink Floyd song. And so in 1975, unsatisfied with the lead vocals that both Gilmour and Waters tried to lay on top “Have a Cigar,” they turned to Roy Harper, who was also recording in Abbey Road at the time, and asked him to have a crack at it.

Certain Songs #1562: Pink Floyd – “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”

June 17, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Wish You Were Here
Year: 1975

. . .

I don’t really remember why — or exactly when — I chose to purchase Wish You Were Here as my first Pink Floyd album, though I’m guessing it was during the second half of 1978 or early 1979, and possibly at the behest of one prog-loving friends, at whose house I first heard it. I can only report its effect on me.

Which is this: not only is Wish You Were Here my favorite Pink Floyd album, my favorite Prog album and one of my favorite albums of the 1970s; it’s practically a desert island disc, to boot. And it pretty much was from the very start, despite the fact I was getting into it at exactly the same time I was getting into the Who, the Rolling Stones and punk rock.