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Wish You Were Here is the ninth studio album by the English rock band Pink Floyd. It was released on 12 September 1975 in the United Kingdom by Harvest Records and a day later in the United States by Columbia Records, their first American release for the label.

Based on material Pink Floyd composed while performing in Europe, Wish You Were Here was recorded over numerous sessions at Abbey Road Studios in London. Two songs criticise the music business, another expresses alienation, and the multi-part composition "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" is a tribute to Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett, who left seven years earlier due to mental health problems. As with their previous album The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), Pink Floyd used studio effects and synthesizers, and brought in guest singers: Roy Harper, who provided the lead vocals on "Have a Cigar", and Venetta Fields, who added backing vocals to "Shine On You Crazy Diamond".

Wish You Were Here topped record charts in the United Kingdom and the United States, and Harvest Records' parent company EMI was unable to print enough copies to meet demand. Although it initially received mixed reviews, it went on to receive critical acclaim, appearing on Rolling Stone's lists of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" and the "50 Greatest Prog Rock Albums of All Time". Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright and guitarist David Gilmour cited it as their favourite Pink Floyd album.

Background
During 1974, Pink Floyd sketched out three new compositions, "Raving and Drooling", "You Gotta Be Crazy" and "Shine On You Crazy Diamond".[nb 1][4] These songs were performed during a series of concerts in France and England, the band's first tour since 1973's The Dark Side of the Moon. As Pink Floyd had never employed a publicist and kept themselves distant from the press, their relationship with the media began to sour. Following the publication by NME of a negative critique of the band's new material, written by Nick Kent (a devotee of Syd Barrett) and Pete Erskine, the band returned to the studio in the first week of 1975.[5][non sequitur]

Concept
Wish You Were Here is Floyd's second album with a conceptual theme written entirely by Roger Waters. It reflects his feeling that the camaraderie that had served the band was, by then, largely absent.[6] The album begins with a long instrumental preamble and segues into the lyrics for "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", a tribute to Syd Barrett, whose mental breakdown had forced him to leave the group seven years earlier.[7] Barrett is fondly recalled with lines such as "Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun" and "You reached for the secret too soon, you cried for the moon".[8]

Wish You Were Here is also a critique of the music business. "Shine On" crosses seamlessly into "Welcome to the Machine", a song that begins with an opening door (described by Waters as a symbol of musical discovery and progress betrayed by a music industry more interested in greed and success) and ends with a party, the latter epitomising "the lack of contact and real feelings between people". Similarly, "Have a Cigar" scorns record industry "fat-cats" with the lyrics repeating a stream of cliches heard by rising new-comers in the industry, and including the question "by the way, which one's Pink?" asked of the band on at least one occasion.[9] The lyrics of the next song, "Wish You Were Here", relate both to Barrett's condition, and to the dichotomy of Waters' character, with greed and ambition battling with compassion and idealism.[10] The album closes with a reprise of "Shine On" and further instrumental excursions.

"I had some criticisms of Dark Side of the Moon…" noted David Gilmour. "One or two of the vehicles carrying the ideas were not as strong as the ideas that they carried. I thought we should try and work harder on marrying the idea and the vehicle that carried it, so that they both had an equal magic… It's something I was personally pushing when we made Wish You Were Here. (Wikipedia)

Item Special Note

Winner must pick up at our main studios during regular business hours, 220 S 4th Avenue, Tucson AZ 85701, or it can be mailed for $7.20.