I don’t know how to write about Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here. I’ve been staring at my laptop for more than ten minutes, trying to find the words to describe how I feel about this record. Trying to capture when I first listened to it, how it became the most important record in a very strange year in my life, how it rooted itself as one of the main case studies in my undergrad thesis, and ultimately, what it means to me. I don’t think I can touch on all of that, not only because of word limit but because it feels like so many of these aspects actively escape my writing. They dare not reveal themselves, in fear of being entombed on the page, solidified and shackled by a single moment of thought.
It starts the moment Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V) floats onto the scene. Eery, glistening, confusingly tender a song for a band that just stormed the US with their 1973 hit Money. It takes its time, centring itself in a sphere created by a complete synthesiser string section, futuristic and nostalgic all at once. David Gilmour’s guitar emerges like a poet, setting the scene as he takes you by the hand to guide you among the brilliance of chords surrounding this bright, psychedelic space that hasn’t yet decided on a meter or rhythm or tone. There is a meditative quality, one that transcends the opening part, one that embeds itself within the entire track, and ignores the direct address of the lyrics and the pleading feeling of Part II’s guitar solo. Listening to it again, I am anew surprised by the endurance of the music, for how long it sustains itself, fighting off the urge for lyrics or a human voice to spoil the illusion of a perfect sphere. I don’t want to imply that Roger Waters ruins the song by imposing words onto the world we have collectively entered. But his words are cutting, enhancing a distinct melancholy, a longing and farewell that kept themselves hidden in the more universal sadness of the music. It is devastating to hear him rally, spitting his urges – ‘come on you target for faraway laughter / come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr / and shine‘ – while knowing that they won’t be heard.
What hits me every time I listen to the album is the underlying sense of dread, of defeat, of disillusionment. It is lurking in the shadows, and to me becomes most present in the opening bars of Welcome To The Machine. Roger Waters’ EMS VCS 3 produces a black hole of sound, gaping, glaring, a machine that is staring back at you and waiting to swallow you whole. Yet at the same time, there is an almost audacious hopefulness in that very same song, the shameless inclusion of an acoustic guitar as the last attempt to anchor the sound, prevent it from devouring itself. The synthesiser/guitar duet builds, dark red tones billow, a visceral tension grows as the steady strumming holds its ground against the shapeless intensity of the mechanical orchestra.
The shortest track on the record, Have A Cigar, simultaneously is the most biting and refreshing. Although following in the footsteps of Welcome To The Machine’s bleakness, the front-page-presence of Waters’ cynicism and disgust for the music industry executives turns the song into a frighteningly catchy diss track. Just the opening bass line is enough to mark an intrinsic shift within the music, a succumbing to the destruction of sincerity, a tongue-in-cheek heckle translated into pure rock heaviness. Roy Harper’s guests vocals add a layer of distance that works in the track’s favour, an additional escape from the hidden melancholy of the previous and following songs. Gilmour’s guitar solo takes up the song’s second half, juxtaposing the cynical lyrics with musical rock candor, as if to aggressively prove the band’s dedication to their craft and fans.
Wish You Were Here is the hardest to write about. Musically, it is interesting for its inclusion of extramusical elements, the fading in of two different recording spaces at the beginning: the value judgements and listening experiences associated with this stylistic choice formed the main body of my undergrad thesis. But on a personal level I find it hard to find the right words to describe the immediate bodily reaction I have to the first riff of that second guitar entering. Upon analysis, it is a smart move for Pink Floyd to introduce one of their more ballady songs – a lamentation of the missing part – not only through the lyrics but through the musical address of absence, the physical presence reduced to a fading recording. I listened to Wish You Were Here a lot in times of grief. And the moments that struck me were not necessarily the lyrics, although some of the most sincere, beautiful and explosive on the record: ‘How I wish, how I wish you were here / we’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl / year after year‘. What struck me was the music’s ability to condense all of those words into that sensation of grief that escapes our language. That sinking gut feeling, that shiver of sadness creeping into daily life, the hollowness that grows with every second you spend lost in your thoughts. But also the tiniest fragment of hope, the smallest indication of growth and passing and maybe even acceptance.
To me, Wish You Were Here might not be the best or the most experimental or the most classic Pink Floyd record. But it is certainly my favourite. It could withstand the pain of academic analysis, remaining a pleasure to listen to (even after the 50th time). It provides me with a safe space, something to come back to time and time again for solace, for comfort, for melancholy and hope. As Syd’s riff re-emerges in Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts VI-IX) right before the vocals kick in, as the last track erupts in the desire for something greater, something more complete, some place to land and ground itself, I feel like Wish You Were Here comes closest to offering a way out of despair.
The Dad Anthology 