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The breakthrough success of DARK SIDE OF THE MOON made WISH YOU 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 Pink Floyd'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 greed that surrounded the band's success. The
themes of disillusionment planted throughout WISH YOU WERE HERE would eventually
sprout full-blown on THE WALL.
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