211 - Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here

[csberry]

Wish You Were Here is a great example of a collection of music that works best when heard as a whole. Essentially, what you have is one HUGE song that is cut in half and put at the beginning and end of the album with three shorter (but still 5+ minutes long) songs in between.

While Syd's rise and fall in the music industry is the obvious inspiration for much of the lyrics; musically, the album is clearly focused on absence. The listener seems to have to travel for a while at the beginning of the album to reach the music and then the lyrics of "Shine on You Crazy Diamond (Parts 1-5)". David's guitar solos and the synths seem like a lazy river or breeze carrying us long distances. The segue into "Wish You Were Here" and acoustic guitars bring to mind a Wild West scene of wind whipping through a ghost town. Even the two music industry songs bring up absence - loss of art for sake of profit, the soulless labels and entertainment industry hucksters, feeling lost from yourself, and possibly even losing control of your very life.

Songs I Knew I Liked: "Shine on You Crazy Diamond (Parts 1-5)" and "Wish You Were Here"

Songs I Now Like: Nothing new

Songs I Can Go the Rest of My Life Never Hearing Again: I'm being a bit picky, but I've never been all that fond of either "Welcome to the Machine" or "Have a Cigar." When they show up when I'm shuffling music, I almost always skip them but I enjoy them as a portion of listening to Wish You Were Here as an album.