Pink Floyd’s ‘Wish You Were Here’ 40 Years Later

As the 40th anniversary of Pink Floyd’s 1975 Wish You Were Here is commemorated, every frustrated musician should rejoice that even the mighty Floyd suffered bouts of indecisiveness during their artistic zenith.

In a recent interview, David Gilmour mused that the band were in disarray after touring 1973’s majestic Dark Side of the Moon. Rather than neuter them creatively however, Gilmour claimed the band harnessed the confusion, using it to inform Wish…’s direction. As critics and fans ensconce themselves in the album’s stormy universe, repeat listens will prove that Wish… is evidence of the band’s stratospheric musical vision that allowed them to follow up the sublime with the dazzlingly cerebral.

It was always going to be difficult to follow up what is widely believed to be Floyd’s magnum opus. Like artists before and after, their human fragility was exposed as commercial success enveloped their lives. Dark Side… made them superstars, cementing their status at home and abroad. With fame however came dissatisfaction with the soulless mechanics of the music industry, evident on Wish…’s icily unsettling ‘Welcome to the Machine’. More devastating for the band was the unexpected return of fallen idol and Floyd founder Syd Barrett to Abbey Road, where Wish… was recorded. Barrett, looking bloated and ashen faced, reduced Roger Waters among others to tears, his inarticulacy mocking his previously imperious image in the halcyon sixties. The volatile cauldron of bubbling disillusionment sculpted the musical landscape of an album that is as much about exploring inner space as it is about imagining conquering outer space.

Wish… will disappoint those nurtured on the immediacy of pop hooks and sheer drops. It is far less accessible than its compatriots in the Floyd discography, because of the length and structure of the songs and the prevalent theme of loss. Nevertheless, once the opening chords of ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’ cradle you in their seductive coils, every doubt will dissolve, every worry will evaporate and every fear will be washed away.

Gilmour’s fretwork ignites the flame of musical Jerusalem in mind and soul, invoking the most spectacular sounds and sights the human imagination can comprehend. Eight minutes elapse before the listener has lyrics to grasp onto, and when they begin, they’re a perfect juxtaposition of complexity and simplicity: ‘remember when you were young, / you shone like the sun’, Waters laments. In today’s uninspiring world of alternative music, it is inconceivable that an album would be bookended by the two parts of ‘Shine On…’ . Its structural ambition, musicianship and lyrical depth are peerless. You cannot possibly imagine a contemporary rock band emulating its genius, or an avaricious record label accepting an album to start and finish in that manner.

The album has aged remarkably well. Floyd stood apart from prog rock bores like Yes in the seventies thanks to Waters’s song writing craft, which has given their work longevity. Each song acts as the listener’s ventriloquist, creating emotional ripples spreading outward from the centre of the chest, cleansing every vein and sinew. Although absence is a recurring theme, the band’s blistering attack on the music industry is arguably Wish…’s centrepiece. Waters’s barbed poetry ridicules punk circles who would later accuse ‘pompous’ Floyd of saying nothing meaningful.

The howling synths on ‘Welcome to the Machine’ are a transparent assault on the industry’s capacity to crush youthful optimism with financially driven motives. Roy Harper takes lead vocals on the greasy funk of ‘Have a Cigar’, the song oozing sleaze from every syllable and excoriating record label executives who sanctify vacuous materialism. The title track, with its timeless line ‘we’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, / year after year’, is the most beautiful song born from confusion ever. The confessional lyrics are a window into Waters’s mind at the time, a mind devoured by the demise of Barrett, hatred of the industry and as ever, the memory of his late father.

In forty years’ time, people will still be listening to Wish…, marvelling at its grace and imagining they are Gilmour on stage, playing solo after solo to adoring fans. It is lengthy without being indulgent, angry without being alienating and challenging without being smug. Though the band are unlikely to reunite any time soon, fans new and old can immerse themselves in a record that makes disenfranchisement sound moving.