Released on September 12, 1985, Pink Floyd’s ninth studio album, Wish You Were Here, was a difficult experience for the band members – indeed, it was the beginning of the end for the line-up led by Roger Waters. They struggled to express dissatisfaction with the music industry, while also exploring their feelings about founding member Syd Barrett. Perhaps that’s why the resulting LP was difficult for some people to accept at the time.
Since then, of course, it’s become revered – with both David Gilmour and the late Richard Wright having said it was their favourite Floyd work. Prog presents seven moments that help define Wish You Were Here’s classic status.
1. Syd Barrett’s furtive visit to the studio
On June 5, 1975, the band were in their Abbey Road studio, struggling to agree on a direction for the record. As conversations continued, a man with a shaved head and eyebrows appeared among them – and it took them some time to realise it was Barrett, whose increasingly strange behaviour had led them to abandon him five years earlier.
“Everyone’s story is fractionally different,” Mason said later. “All I can say is that he was definitely there, and it was weird.” In some variants, Barrett was present while Floyd were mixing Shine On You Crazy Diamond – the song they’d written in tribute to him. Asked what he thought of it, he’s reported to have said: “Sounds a bit old.”
2. The cover art
Hipgnosis design icon Storm Thorgerson wanted to convey the band’s feelings about Barrett’s absence on the sleeve art. In pursuing the notion he assembled a shot of two businessmen – one on fire – shaking hands.
“As the image was created before the common use of computerised imagery, stuntman Ronnie Rondell was kitted out with fire-resistant underclothes beneath a business suit and a wig,” Prog explained in 2013. “Once set alight, the safety precautions worked – up to a point. They hadn’t taken into account the wind direction – it blew towards Rondell, burning his moustache, before he and fellow stuntman Danny Rogers changed positions.”
Thorgerson’s colleague Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell said in 2023: “We had four cover images in one package,” noting the project had cost £50,000 at the time. “We spent two months in LA, scouting locations, setting a stuntman on fire, shooting an upside-down diver in Mono Lake, photographing a male model in the Glamis sand dunes... and then Storm covered the whole package in shrink wrap. It was brilliant!”
As he told Prog on another occasion, the record label were less than delighted with the result.
3. Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Part II (3:54)
Gilmour’s defining four-note guitar phrase – which has colloquially become known as ‘Syd’s Theme’ – is arguably the most recognisable motif of the entire Pink Floyd catalogue.
4. Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Part IV (8:42)
As if to underline the theme of absence on Wish You Were Here, in the time it takes Waters’ vocals eventually appear, you could have listened to the opening two-and-a-half tracks from The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn.
5. Welcome To The Machine (0.24)
As Wright’s second buzzer sound seriously disturbs the calm surface of previous track, combined with Waters’ menacing VCS3 throb, it’s clear that Wish You Were Here is not simply going to be a straightforward chill-out pleasure.
6. Wish You Were Here (1:28)
Arguably the greatest combination of the salt’n’sweet of Waters and Gilmour, it demonstrates, despite whatever animosity there may have been between them, just how mutually beneficial their partnership was.
7. Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Part IX (12.08)
The sheer poignancy today of one departed Floyd member – Wright – paying tribute to the other – Barrett – in the album’s mournful sign-off, invoking a melody line from their Syd-penned Top 10 1967 hit, See Emily Play. As the sound drifts away, it marks the last time all four members contributed so evenly to a Floyd album.
