The band were recording “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” – their tribute to Syd Barrett – at Abbey Road studios. Deep in their work, they never realised when a “large, fat bloke with a shaven head, wearing a decrepit old tan mac and carrying a plastic shopping bag” came in and sat in a corner of the studio. No one knew who it was. Forty five minutes later, it suddenly dawned on Richard Wright that it was Syd Barrett – who had randomly wandered into the studio, on the precise day and precise hour that Pink Floyd were recording their tribute to him. He hung around for a bit, and then, just as mysteriously, went away, never to be seen by the band again. Crazy, right?! 

The Tea Set was what Syd Barrett, Roger Waters, Nick Mason and Richard Wright called themselves in 1965. A few months later, just before going on stage, they realised another band called ‘The Tea Set’ was going to perform at their gig?! On the spur of the moment, Barrett came up with a new name, derived from the first names of two blues musicians he really liked, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council….et voila – Pink Floyd!

Unfortunately, Pink Floyd’s music wasn’t very popular, at least not right away – in ’66 a local Catholic Youth club owner refused to pay them for a gig because he felt that what they played all night wasn’t music?! The band took the club owner to court, only to have the magistrate uphold the owner’s decision??‍♂️ ?. But, over the next three years they built up a cult following with their psychedelic music and shows, while Barrett dove headlong down the rabbit hole of hard drugs. In a couple of years he became so erratic, that in ’68 the band were forced to replace their friend with a new guitarist, David Gilmour, with Roger Waters taking over lyric duty.

The band never really got over the loss of Barrett – they missed him terribly & wrote songs about him for years, wishing he was there. And that, brings us to this album. The title track ‘Wish You Were Here’ is one of my favourite Floyd songs – “we’re just two lost souls, swimming in a fish bowl, year after year” is possibly one of rock music’s most memorable lines.  The opening & closing track(s) of the album  – ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’ – parts I – IX  and 26 minutes long (!) – is/are about Syd. Clearly Barrett was something special – imagine legends like Gilmour, Waters, Mason and Wright missing you so much they write whole albums about you!

““Now there’s a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky…Come on, you raver, you seer of visions……….Come on, you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine”

Wish You Were Here is about the melancholy of absence. Not just the absence of Syd Barrett. It was also the absence of motivation & the realisation that after Dark Side of the Moon, they were no longer a band of brothers. They had become the biggest band in the world, enormously rich and had achieved their wildest dreams. But, they had drifted apart. And anyway, where do you after having made Dark Side Of the Moon – one of the greatest ever albums in Rock?  And, how do you carry on? That really is the what this album was about – a band disintegrating under the weight of their own success, wishing they were all really there.

BTW, am I the only one who thinks Pink Floyd were one of the most miserable bands of all time? Their music is mind- bendingly fantastic – but all they sang about was death, war, lunacy, depression, melancholy, separation, repression…..how did they become one of my favourite bands of all time?! ??