It's undeniably an outstanding record in parts. Sonically, an
advance on its predecessor, Dark Side Of The Moon, and containing two absolute
Floyd classics in Shine On You Crazy Diamond and the title track.
I've just
never warmed to the rest of it, despite the fact that I saw them perform it live
twice in the mid-1970s and again 20 years later.
By 1974, having produced the aforementioned Dark Side - their masterpiece – and hit the big time, the members of Pink Floyd were in a bit of a bind. The record company wanted more product. The band freely admit they struggled coming to terms with having peaked creatively and commercially. Roger Waters especially, began to feel like he was being treated as a commodity to be exploited.
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| Live at Wembley Arena, November 1974 |
"You gotta keep everyone buying this shit"
– lyrics from ‘You Gotta Be Crazy’, one of the new songs.
It’s well documented that Waters, as the chief lyricist and conceptualist, was increasingly at odds with David Gilmour over the material and arrangements. Having written all the lyrics for Dark Side Of The Moon, the sessions for Wish You Were Here mark the point at which Waters pushed for greater control.
Of the songs being developed for what would
become Wish You Were Here - Shine On You Crazy Diamond, You Gotta Be Crazy and
Raving and Drooling - only the first one would make the cut. Despite Gilmour’s
protestations, the latter two were held over, used in slightly different form on the 1977 album Animals.
Shine On You Crazy Diamond - Waters' tribute to the Floyd's fallen leader, Syd Barrett - was certainly the most impressive of the new songs I heard when I saw them at Wembley's Empire Pool in November 1974.
In its early form, in those 1974 live shows, the four note guitar figure, the chiming signature motif at the start of the song, was
already well on the way to being iconic. In the studio, the band and the
engineers took it to another level.
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| Gilmour recording the Shine On riff in Studio 1 |
Waters wanted the next album to have a thematic core, based around the concept of isolation, the loss of friends and family. Shine On You Crazy Diamond was a heart-felt plea to a talented former colleague, brain-damaged and sidelined owing to his over-indulgence in LSD. The music more than does that tribute justice. It's a sad, mournful tune at times, but with a hopeful message, and stands as one of the top 5 Floyd tracks ever recorded.
The song Wish You Were Here would also be in many people's top 5. Its universality is a stroke of genius. A simple guitar riff and words inspired by the loss of Waters' father in WW2 (not forgetting his grandfather who died in the Great War) and his friend Syd. But the lyric can be appreciated by everyone.
So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from hell?
Blue skies from pain?
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
Did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
Did you exchange, a walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl
Year after year
Running over the same old ground, what have we found?
The same old fears
Wish you were here
lyrics © Roger Waters Music Overseas Ltd, Pink Floyd Music Publishers Ltd
The sessions at Abbey Road in 1975 were made all the more poignant by the strange episode of Syd Barrett's unexpected appearance. Fat, bald and with no eyebrows, he went unrecognised for a while; truly a stranger in their midst. Realising it was him must have been quite upsetting for them.
The reason for Syd's visit was never fully explained and that was the last time some of them ever saw him. A tragic conclusion to their lives together and confirmation that the Syd they knew was gone, never to return.
Waters' other main theme for the album was the sense of being manipulated by the system;
reflective of Roger's sense that as a band they were now just "riding the
gravy train".
The early lyrics to You Gotta Be Crazy (renamed Dogs on the Animals
album) indicated a dark sarcasm already prevalent in the classroom.
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| Lyric page from '74 tour program |
Although that seems fairly consistent with the 'riding the gravy train' sentiments
expressed on WYWH, Waters was adamant You Gotta Be Crazy didn’t fit with his concept for the
album. Having got his way, Waters then delivered Have A Cigar and Welcome To The Machine. This is where I start to have issues.
I like Roy Harper and he does a great job on Have A Cigar in
conveying the insincerity and cynicism of a certain type of record business
executive. But it's that very cynicism that makes the track so unedifying for
me. The "by the way, which one's Pink?" line fits well, but only adds to the dark sarcasm at the root of the song.
Waters and Gilmour fought over the inclusion of Harper’s vocal and on this
occasion Gilmour prevailed. Roger Waters dislikes the vocal to this day,
saying Harper laid the smarminess on too thick.
The tune itself is charmless, and this mood of relentless cynicism is compounded by Welcome To The Machine, a clear indication of where
Pink Floyd's music would go on their next two albums, Animals and The Wall.
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| One of Scarfe's images for Welcome To The Machine |
Which was the point, I suppose, and I think this is my issue with the album. I have always found it
hard to empathise with Waters’ protestations that he was now a slave to the music
business – a business that had supported him and the band for several years in the late 60s
and early 70s when Pink Floyd were noodling about looking for a fresh
direction, after their initial success with Syd.
The contrast with Dark Side Of The Moon is striking - there's an empathy
behind the cod philosophy of Water's lyrics on their 1973 masterwork. But by 1975,
there was only despair and rage. Woe is me, I'm a millionaire rock star tied to a
life of mass adulation and million-selling albums (regardless of their quality).
So, for me, Wish You Were Here is a good album, but not their masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination.
I'll be checking out the new mixes of Shine On You Crazy Diamond, though. That's definitely worth a listen.
Here's the full audio of the Pink Floyd show at Wembley Empire Pool in November 1974
Starts off with everyone's first hearing of Shine On You Crazy Diamond and continues with Dark Side of the Moon, in full and an encore of Echoes. What a treat, and I was there.
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Also On This Blog:Pink Floyd On Tour in 1974 and 1977
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