{"id":526990,"date":"2026-03-08T15:24:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T15:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/526990\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T15:24:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T15:24:12","slug":"shine-on-you-crazy-diamond-by-pink-floyd-the-story-behind-the-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/526990\/","title":{"rendered":"Shine On You Crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd: the story behind the song"},"content":{"rendered":"

One day in the summer of 2011, Pink Floyd<\/a> guitarist David Gilmour<\/a> was driving through London\u2019s King Cross when he decided to look for Unit Studios. It was here, in January 1974, that he\u2019d conjured up the four-note guitar figure that ignites Shine On You Crazy Diamond.<\/p>\n

Gilmour couldn\u2019t remember the address, only that the tiny rehearsal room was down an alley and \u201can absolute shit-hole\u201d. But it was long gone now. From such inauspicious surroundings came a piece of music that book-ended Pink Floyd\u2019s 1975 album Wish You Were Here and still defines them today. Although never released as a single, and running to nine parts and 26 minutes, Shine On You Crazy Diamond is Floyd\u2019s greatest (non) hit.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In 1974 the band were reeling from the success of the previous year\u2019s The Dark Side Of The Moon<\/a>, which had jettisoned them from cult status to a US chart-topping act. But none of them knew what to do next.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

Instead, they toured in fits and starts, while trying to write the follow-up. It was a daunting prospect, and there were several false starts. In December 1973 they resumed work on \u2018Household Objects<\/a>\u2019, a project they\u2019d started three years earlier. They spent eight weeks at London\u2019s Abbey Road studios making music without using conventional instruments. Instead they created a bass line by \u2018playing\u2019 an elastic band stretched over a matchbox, a drum beat by striking a block of wood with an axe\u2026 \u201cI think it was a delaying tactic, because we didn\u2019t know what else to do,\u201d drummer Nick Mason admitted.<\/p>\n

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\"Pink\n<\/p>\n

Pink Floyd in 1975: (from second left) David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Roger Waters, Richard Wright (Image credit: Nik Wheeler\/Sygma via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

By Christmas they had abandoned the idea. But one sound was retained: the note made by running a finger around the edge of a wine glass filled with liquid.<\/p>\n

These tuned wine-glass notes would become the first sound heard on Shine On You Crazy Diamond. In the meantime, Floyd began work at Unit Studios.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember feeling very sad about Syd. And there was guilt there, too.<\/p>\n

Roger Waters<\/p>\n

By the end of their January stint, they had work-in-progress versions of three new songs: Raving And Drooling, You Gotta Be Crazy and Shine On You Crazy Diamond. Waters\u2019s disillusionment with the music industry had inspired the first two. \u201cOh look, we\u2019re rich,\u201d he said. \u201cWe set out to achieve what we set out to achieve. What do we do now?\u201d<\/p>\n

But it was obvious whom Shine On You Crazy Diamond was about. The \u2018seer of visions\u2026 you painter, you piper, you prisoner\u2019 was Floyd\u2019s co-founder Syd Barrett<\/a>, who\u2019d quit the group in 1968 suffering mental health issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember feeling very sad about Syd,\u201d said Waters. \u201cAnd there was guilt there, too.\u201d While Floyd became rich, f\u00eated and famous, the reclusive Barrett had abandoned his musical career and was living alone in a womb-like apartment in Chelsea, West London.<\/p>\n

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\"Pink\n<\/p>\n

Pink Floyd onstage in the mid-1970s (Image credit: Jeffrey Mayer\/WireImage)<\/p>\n

Floyd went back on the road in June 1974, and premiered an early version of Shine On, dedicating it to \u201cSydney Barrett\u201d. The song encapsulated a band on the cusp of stardom, but urging their old friend and former bandmate to come out of hiding and show the world what he could do.<\/p>\n

What to read next<\/p>\n

But progress was still slow when work on the new album resumed at Abbey Road in the new year. \u201cNone of us were feeling terribly inspired,\u201d said Mason, who recalled days spent listlessly firing an air rifle at a dartboard while waiting for inspiration to strike.<\/p>\n

Waters eventually cracked, and announced that he was ditching Raving And Drooling and You Gotta Be Crazy, and suggested turning Shine On You Crazy Diamond into the opening and closing tracks on the album.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Waters began writing new material to plug the gap. Slowly, a theme emerged: absence. The absence of Syd Barrett, of inspiration within the band, and \u2013 as both Waters and Mason were about to get divorced \u2013 an absence of wives and relationships.<\/p>\n

Pink Floyd – Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Pts. 1-9, New Stereo Mix \/ Official Video) – YouTube
\n\"Pink<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

Floyd\u2019s tribute to Syd Barrett unfolded slowly, allowing the atmosphere to build. For such a lengthy piece of music by a band popularly regarded as progressive rock, Shine On was still rooted in the blues. Parts One to Five shifted from an eerie, cinematic overture, to a hymn for Syd and then to a languid jazzy finale.<\/p>\n

At first we thought Syd was someone who worked at the studio. Nobody recognised him.<\/p>\n

Mason<\/p>\n

Shine On resumed on the second side of the original LP. As reflected in the writing credits, Richard Wright<\/a>\u2019s Minimoog synthesiser, Hammond organ and string synthesiser dominated much of parts Six to Nine. Wright (who died in 2008) often named Shine On You Crazy Diamond and Wish You Were Here as his favourite Floyd song and album.<\/p>\n

On June 5, 1975, in a moment worthy of a Hollywood scriptwriter, Syd Barrett, unrecognised, shuffled into Abbey Road while Floyd were listening to a playback of the track. \u201cAt first we thought he was someone who worked at the studio,\u201d said Mason. \u201cNobody recognised him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The slim, elfin Syd of 1967 was long gone. Barrett had shaved his head and eyebrows bald, was heavily overweight and clutching a plastic carrier bag. Some eyewitnesses recall him asking when it was time for him to play guitar; others remember him jumping up and down while furiously brushing his teeth. Both Waters and Wright were supposedly moved to tears.<\/p>\n

\u2018Sydney Barrett\u2019 breezed out of Pink Floyd\u2019s life as quickly as he\u2019d arrived. None of them ever saw him again. Their tribute became the cornerstone of Wish You Were Here, an album that, despite Waters\u2019s disgruntlement, only compounded Floyd\u2019s position as one of the biggest bands in the world.<\/p>\n

Shine On You Crazy Diamond remains the essence of 1970s Pink Floyd: a compelling mix of icy reserve, raw emotion and nostalgia. At 12\u2019 07\u201d during the final part, the outro from Barrett\u2019s greatest Floyd hit, See Emily Play, flits through the mix, then disappears into the ether \u2013 like Syd himself. It\u2019s a fitting way to end the track.<\/p>\n

Originally published in Classic Rock issue 301 (April 2022)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One day in the summer of 2011, Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour was driving through London\u2019s King Cross…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":526991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,134,136],"class_list":["post-526990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}