Fifty years on, Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” continues to affirm the band’s status as one of rock’s most enduring myths and a rare example of a group that has spectacularly withstood the test of time.
Although the band has been effectively inactive since 1994, with their final album, 2014’s “The Endless River,” comprising outtakes from 1993, anything related to the group still ignites fan enthusiasm. This year, a reissue of their historic live album, “Pink Floyd at Pompeii,” reached number one on Italy’s album and vinyl charts.
In the band’s legendary catalog, “Wish You Were Here” is the chapter that followed the monumental triumph of “The Dark Side of the Moon.” That album marked a radical shift in the group’s style and catapulted them into a stratosphere of innovation, particularly in applied music technology—a realm where Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Richard Wright, and Nick Mason literally designed the future. “The Dark Side of the Moon” was even recorded in quadraphonic sound, a groundbreaking technique in the 1970s that was never commercially adopted.
The making of “Wish You Were Here” was itself a story of tensions, creative explosions, and prescient ideas. The album serves as a profound act of love for Syd Barrett, the band’s original “mad hatter” founder who left due to debilitating mental illness. The majestic “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” is rightly considered one of the greatest songs ever written on the subject of madness.
A now-legendary and inexplicable event occurred during the recording sessions. On June 5, 1975, as the band was working on “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” at EMI’s Studio 3 (later Abbey Road Studios), an overweight man with shaved hair and eyebrows, clutching a plastic bag, wandered in. Initially unrecognizable and with a lost gaze, David Gilmour eventually realized it was Syd Barrett, who had been living in seclusion. He had appeared on the very day his old friends were committing their grand tribute to vinyl. Barrett, clearly secluded in his own unreachable world, showed no reaction to the music or attempts to converse. He visited a few more times, deepening his former bandmates’ anguish and melancholy, before disappearing from their lives for good.
Alongside the theme of lost friendship, the album explores the relationship between artists and the music business, symbolized by its legendary, revolutionarily packaged cover. Designed by Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey “Po” Powell of Hipgnosis, the iconic image shot in Burbank depicts two stuntmen—one on fire—shaking hands. The authentic flames were so intense they slightly burned one of the performers, perfectly illustrating the concept of the artist being “burned” by the businessman’s handshake.
It is now ironic to recall that upon its release, “Wish You Were Here” received a lukewarm critical response, though it was an immediate public success. With time, as the album’s innovations became some of the most famous notes in rock history, it has been universally acclaimed as one of the most important albums ever made.