Pink Floyd fans have been left amazed at how long it took the band to write one of their most iconic songs. Wish You Were Here is one of the British rock group’s best-known songs.
It was released in 1975 on the album of the same name, the ninth Pink Floyd album, coming two years after the Dark Side Of The Moon album which changed the band’s fortunes forever and made them global superstars and one of the biggest-selling bands in history.
The Wish You Were Here album is also one of the biggest-selling of all time, with a claimed 20 million copies sold. The single, meanwhile, has been voted the best Pink Floyd song of all time, as well as one of the best rock songs ever.
It is the fifth of six songs on the album, which has been widely interpreted as a tribute to fellow Pink Floyd founding member Syd Barrett, who had left the band seven years earlier, long before the band achieved their stratospheric success, due to his deteriorating mental health. The album also contains the song Shine On You Crazy Diamond, again considered a tribute to Barrett.
In an interview with Dan Rather, Waters explained the story behind Wish You Were Here. He said: “It’s one of those strange songs that came to me very easily, because David Gilmour had been playing the riff and I’d been listening to it and going ‘What’s that? Play that again’.
“So I learned it and I said ‘And then what happens?’ and he said ‘No that’s it’. And I went ‘I like it, do you mind if I see what happens next?’ And so I played a few chords and wrote the song very, very quickly, as I recall, probably within an hour.
“So it was one of those happy times when stream of consciousness works and words come out which have meter and meaning and are musical and fit a melody. So I don’t try to investigate them too much. It would feel a little bit like investigating a butterfly: you end up with dust and a few broken bits.”
He went on to describe how the moment came during the recording of the Wish You Were Here album saying: “It was all about absence, it was to some extent about the loss of Syd Barrett, who had succumbed to mental illness seven or eight years before.”
Waters went on to describe Barrett as “a charming, ebullient, talented friend” and added: “I miss him. But I’ve been missing him since 1968 because he succumbed to some sort of mental illness, which you might call schizophrenia — you can kind of call that combination of symptoms anything you want but the fact is that if it happens to someone it prevents them from communicating. They really do develop a wall. And Syd developed a wall and it was extremely sad.”
Waters also said his father, who died in World War Two, was a key part of Wish You Were Here. He said: “Of course. Everything goes back to my father. And my mother. My father has been a central figure in everything.”
Reacting to the interview, Pink Floyd fans were quick to shower Waters and Pink Floyd with praise. Martin Nelson wrote: “Sometimes inspiration strikes, and it can all come out in an hour and sometimes much less.”
Another, CS Lloyd, said: “One of the best hours in the history of history.”
David Cammilleri said: “The riff is iconic and beautiful. I think David Gilmour is the greatest guitarist ever. Every note was important. It was not about blazing speed. It was about soul.”
Johanna Walters wrote: “When the song comes over the radio I stop what ever I’m doing and listen to it, get goosebumps and cry, think about my grandmother and my son that left, and will never see them again.”
Some Pink Floyd fans may be unaware of a haunting moment that occurred when the band was recording the Wish You Were Here album.
“I remember going in, and Roger was already in the studio working,” Richard Wright once recalled. “I came in and sat next to Roger. After 10 minutes he said to me ‘Do you know who that guy is?’ I said ‘I have no idea. I assumed it was a friend of yours.’ And suddenly I realised it was Syd.”
Syd Barrett died in 2006.