Wish You Were Here

About

By the time Pink Floyd released their ninth studio album, <i>Wish You Were Here</i>, in the fall of 1975, only eight years had passed since their debut. But in many way, the five-track suite suggested a band that had endured far more than a decade of turmoil and triumph and, against expectation, thrived in the face of it. In the early days of their ascent, they’d lost Syd Barrett, the madcap leader whose fragile mental state quickly withered beneath the spotlight. And with 1973’s <i>Dark Side of the Moon</i>, Pink Floyd had become such commercial juggernauts that some of their most audacious peer, including Genesi, wondered if they could ever again construct the kind of cosmic wonders that had once flowed from Barrett’s brain. A moving memorial to their lost brotherhood with Barrett, <i>Wish You Were Here</i> doubles as a melancholic yes and a moving masterwork of mainstream rock introspection. Earlier that year, after Pink Floyd had already taken their new songs on tour in the State, Barrett famously dropped in on his old mates at Abbey Road. With his head shaved, his eyes distant, and his frame wide, Barrett first went unrecognized by the band. When Roger Waters ultimately played him “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”—the 25-minute psychedelic fantasy that went on to bookend the album—Barrett barely responded. But the song and record were about him, or, more broadly, the way the world and especially fame can dull the glow of someone who once “shone like the sun.” His visit reaffirmed the album’s bittersweet gist. .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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