Wish You Were Here 1975
With DSotM being such a massive hit, there was a lot of pressure on the band for what were be next. Initially they were toying with an idea of recording a album using non- instruments, called Household Objects but that was scrapped (not sure if there are any recording of these). But they had developed 3 songs that they started performing on the next tour that were to be part of the next album, Shine On You Crazy Diamond (maybe only called Shine On at the time), “Raving and Drooling” and “You’ve Got to be Crazy.” The spent months in the studio 4 days a week but we’re having a hard time coming up with new material and were more distracted with drinking and other personal problems. Gilmour was interested to just improve on the songs they had which really were enough for an album given their lengths but Waters started to want to work on another concept. The only problem was the songs they had didn’t really fit together to be cantered on a theme. So Shine on was kept and “Raving and Drooling” and “You’ve Got to be Crazy” were set aside but would later be reworked into Sheep and Dogs on the following Animals album.
Shine On was basically a tribute to Syd and while Water’s says that Wish You Were Here is not specifically about him, it is often the thought when listening to the words. Two more tracks were added, Welcome to the Machine and Have a Cigar that critique what it is like to be in a band that gets big and a cynical take on the expectations from the record companies. I suppose it loosely forms a concept around how the pressures of making it big and the demise of Syd as a creative force all are related. Though, I those around him at the time would also have a hand in it as well.
Lyrics again are all Waters. (Mason absent from credits)
Shine on (Waters, Gilmour, Wright) both parts
Welcome to the Machine (Waters)
Have a Cigar (Waters)
Wish You Were Here (Waters, Gilmour)
Shine On You Crazy Diamond ends up being around 25 minutes spilt in half to open and close the album (each half have their own sections). Mostly an instrumental, sparse on lyrics though they are very good, and pretty much a master piece. But won’t recommend it here.
While Wish You Were Here is probably my second favourite song, I have to imagine everybody knows it, so will choose Have a Cigar. Originally Waters wanted to sing it but was not happy with the results. He found he had a strained voice from singing the lead on Shine On which surprised me, I could tell he sings the softer parts but I thought the difficult part was Gilmour with backing singers. After struggling with the vocal parts, he asked Gilmour to sing it (by far a better (proper?) singer but he declined. He found the song to cynical and didn’t quite share the view. But Roy Harper, who was a English rock/folk singer, was recording an album the same studios so they invited him to sing the track. He wasn’t interested but owed Gilmour a favour for contributing a guitar solo on his album.
Have a Cigar: (album version with Harper singing)
https://youtu.be/ankSXthBdd8Studio version with Waters Singing released as part of the immersion set:
https://youtu.be/aFs4HLdV9ycExtra bonus…
The band The Main Squeeze doing some amazing cover songs (plus originals) that everybody should listen to.
https://youtu.be/8R6StQfLNbw