Pink Floyd

Wish You Were Here (1975)

Literary analysis by Steven Van Impe

Produced by Roger Waters and David Gimour
All lyrics by Roger Waters

This album is dedicated to Syd Barrett. After their success album, The Dark Side Of The Moon , they all felt sorry for him because he wasn't with them anymore. The song Wish You Were Here is often misinterpreted as a simple love song, but it is in fact about Syd.

Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Part One)

(Gilmour, Waters, Wright) The Crazy Diamond is of course Syd Barrett. It possibly has to do with the Beatles' great song Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds: it is well known that the song title refers to LSD, the drug Syd was addicted to. In fact, if you use the same procedure on the title of the Pink Floyd song, you get: SOYCD, SoYcD, SYD!

Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun. Shine on you crazy diamond.
Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky. Shine on you crazy diamond.
You were caught in the cross-fire of childhood and stardom, blown on the steel breeze.
Come on you target for faraway laughter, come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and shine!

Syd had always been a very happy guy, with twinkeling eyes. But when he started taking massive amounts of drugs, he would stare right through you, like there was Nobody Home. Notice the contrast between sun and black holes in the sky: a black hole is a star (sun) that has collapsed and become so heavy that nothing can escape its gravity, not even light.

Childhood and stardom: Syd was still very young when he became a rock star, perhaps he wasn't ready for the pressure. Faraway laughter: some people would mock Pink Floyd because of Syd: sometimes when he was on stage, he couldn't move his fingers to play the guitar, or even adlib to the tape.

You reached for the secret too soon, you cried for the moon. Shine on you crazy diamond.
Threatened by shadows at night, and exposed in the light. Shine on you crazy diamond.
Well you wore out your welcome with random precision, rode on the steel breeze.
Come on you raver, you seer of visions, come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!

Secret: perhaps referring to the Saucerful of Secrets album, during which Syd left the band? the moon is an obvious reference to The Dark Side Of The Moon. Shadows at night: perhaps the drugs made Syd have nightmares? Exposed to the light: on stage it was impossible to hide from the spotlights that were showing his decadence to the world. Wore out your welcome: before he started taking drugs, Syd was very popular at social occasions, he was always welcome. Random precision: he didn't intend to end up this way, but no matter what he did, it always ended up with him getting even deeper in trouble. He always seemed to pick the worst possible time to get stoned.

Welcome To The Machine

(Waters)

We are now in the basement of a building which represents society. The room, a gigantic industrial hall, is filled with machinery. You can clearly hear the sounds, the grinding of gears, the hissing of steam engines.
A young boy (Syd) is being introduced to society by his father (I think), who is a blue-collar worker. His father is advising him on how to make his way through the sh!t of society:

Welcome my son, welcome to the machine.
Where have you been? It's alright we know where you've been.
You've been in the pipeline, filling in time, provided with toys and Scouting for Boys.
You bought a guitar to punish your ma,
And you didn't like school, and you know you're nobody's fool,
So welcome to the machine.

We know where you've been: Big Brother is watching you. The government knows all about you, and tries to keep you calm because they fear you. Quite marxist text, or perhaps that's just my interpretation?

Welcome my son, welcome to the machine.
What did you dream? It's alright we told you what to dream.
You dreamed of a big star, he played a mean guitar.
He always ate in the steak bar.
He loved to drive in his Jaguar.
So welcome to the machine.

We told you what to dream: now Big Brother isn't just watching you, he is programming you. This isn't marxism, this is Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (which will also come back in The Wall!). The boy is being brainwashed: if you work hard enough, you can buy all luxury you want. This is kapitalism. big star: We're in Rock business. The next song, Have A Cigar, will elaborate on that theme. Perhaps the big star with his mean guitar is Pink, the main character from The Wall?

Have A Cigar

(Waters)

Now, we get in an elevator (note the keen stereo effect as the door closes and opens!) which will take us to the top of the building: a cocktail party for the establishment, to celebrate the tremendous success of Dark Side of the Moon.

Come in here, dear boy, have a cigar. You're gonna go far, you're gonna fly high,
You're never gonna die, you're gonna make it if you try; they're gonna love you.
Well I've always had a deep respect, and I mean that most sincerely.
The band is just fantastic, that is really what I think. Oh by the way which one's Pink?
And did we tell you the name of the game, boy, we call it Riding the Gravy Train.

You can almost smell the cigar as Roy Harper starts to sing! Apparantly, we are now lead away from the party into an office of a record producer. EMI wasn't very happy with the lyrics, but Roger pushed them through.
Deep respect: yeah right, as long as the money keeps flowing. The next line is in an evident contradiction with this: which one's Pink?. Obviously, the EMI official doesn't know anything about the band.
Riding the Gravy Train: an English expression, meaning: to take advantage of a profitable situation while it lasts.

We're just knocked out. We heard about the sell out. You gotta get an album out,
You owe it to the people. We're so happy we can hardly count.
Everybody else is just green, have you seen the chart?
It's a helluva start, it could be made into a monster if we all pull together as a team.
And did we tell you the name of the game, boy, we call it Riding the Gravy Train.

Gotta get an album out: after the success of Dark Side, the record company wanted a new album as soon as possible. This might even be a direct quote!
You owe it to the people: and to the record company, of course! Have you seen the chart: at that moment, even the record company couldn't imagine the success Dark Side of the Moon would have: it stayed in the top-200 for 12 years!

Wish You Were Here

(Waters, Gilmour)

From the record company, we follow the radio waves through the building untill we end up in a squeaky radio in a rather empty room. This is the room where Syd lives now: a bed, a table, a chair, a fridge, and a radio. We can hear coughing: this is Dave Gilmour actually coughing. When he heard the recording, he immediately decided to quit smoking!
Syd walks around (we can hear the stereo shift), and then he changes the channel. After some trial and error, he finds his favourite radio station, playing a song he knows. He gets his guitar and starts jamming with the radio. Now, we enter in his dreamworld: he is actually there, with the band he left so many years ago.

In fact, Syd actually did show up while they were recording Wish You Were Here: he had become bald and fat, and no-one recognised him until Peter Jenner (the band's manager) walked in and said: 'My God, it's Syd!'. Syd told them that he wanted to visit his old mates now that they had become a succesful rock band. They asked him if he wanted to join, but he refused.

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?

And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts? Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze? Cold comfort for change?
And 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.

These lyrics are so beautiful. There's few to explain, it are all just random images.

Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Part Two)

(Waters, Wright, Gilmour) At first, Shine On was to be one piece, but it was too long to fit on one LP side. So they decided to split it up, making the album cyclic. Dark Side was already cyclic (with the heart beat), but from now on cycles would become a part of Pink Floyd: Animals has Pigs on the Wing, parts One and Two. The Wall is made cyclic with the hidden message ...we came in. - This is where... and the sound of Outside the Wall being played just before In The Flesh?.

Nobody knows where you are, how near or how far. Shine on you crazy diamond.
Pile on many more layers and I'll be joining you there. Shine on you crazy diamond.
And we'll bask in the shadow of yesterday's triumph, and sail on the steel breeze.
Come on you boy-child, you winner and loser, come one you miner for truth and delusion, and shine!

Where you are: nobody knew where Syd lived, until he turned up in the studio. Even now he is almost unreachable. Many more layers: like building a wall? Yesterday's triumph the triumph is of course Dark Side.

Steel breeze: In the first stanza, Syd is blown on the steele breeze. In the second, he already rode on it. Now he's sailing on it: he learns how to use the breeze. I have no idea whatsoever the steel breeze actually means. Can anyone help?

All lyrics by Roger Waters. © 1975 Pink Floyd Music Publishers Ltd.
Logos by Hipgnosis and Storm Thorgerson.
The literary comments and explanations added are © 1997 by Steven Van Impe.