{"id":344644,"date":"2025-12-12T15:45:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T15:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/344644\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T15:45:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T15:45:07","slug":"harder-work-than-almost-any-album-we-ever-did-pink-floyds-wish-you-were-here-turns-50-pink-floyd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/344644\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Harder work than almost any album we ever did\u2019: Pink Floyd\u2019s Wish You Were Here turns 50 | Pink Floyd"},"content":{"rendered":"

By almost every measure, from commercial reward to creative reach, Pink Floyd<\/a> scaled its peak on Dark Side of the Moon. But, when I asked drummer Nick Mason how he would rank the album in their catalogue, he slotted it below the set that came next, Wish You Were Here. Speaking of Dark Side, he said, \u201cthe idea of it is almost more attractive than the individual songs on it. I feel slightly the same about Sgt. Pepper. It\u2019s an amazing album that taught us a hell of a lot, but the individual parts are not quite as exciting, or as good, as some of the other Beatles\u2019 albums.\u201d<\/p>\n

By contrast, he says of Wish You Were Here, \u201cthere\u2019s something in the general atmosphere it generates \u2013 the space of it, the air around it, that\u2019s really special,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the reasons I view it so affectionately.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hardly the only one. As Mason spoke by Zoom from his office in London \u2013 a crowded space he jauntily refers to as \u201cmore a toy shop than an office\u201d \u2013 he talked about everything that went into making an album that became a classic of its own, making it fully worthy of a new box set elaboration for this, its 50th anniversary. The set not only features the obligatory remixed versions of all the songs from original album but also revealing demos, significantly altered versions of key tracks, and formative live recordings from the tour that led up to its creation.<\/p>\n

For Mason, the best part of the set is the chance to listen to it from front to back in its vinyl version. \u201cI had lost that thing of sitting down and listening to an entire album properly,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s always streaming. The big take away for me from the vinyl is the quality of the recording, which is a credit to Abbey Road and the technical people there. I remember how meticulous they were, and by God, that paid off 50 years later!\u201d<\/p>\n

The way the album as a whole pays off strikes Mason as particularly surprising given the fact that, for a protracted period, they didn\u2019t think it would come off at all. \u201cWe had major false starts,\u201d he said. \u201cSeveral, in fact.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nick Mason. Photograph: Tracey Kraft\/Sony Music Entertainment<\/p>\n

The cushion provided by Dark Side\u2019s gargantuan popularity gave the band the time to indulge that throw-it-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach. Small wonder Mason laughingly described their mood at the time as one of \u201crelaxed desperation.\u201d<\/p>\n

After all, as much good will as Dark Side had bought them, its outsized success put them in the position of having to create an equally momentous chaser. This, at a time when everything about the band was in the process of change, from their working relationship to who they were as people. \u201cWe weren\u2019t the lovable mop tops anymore,\u201d Mason said. \u201cWe were around 30 then. Some of us had kids. We began to have lives outside of making records and going on tour. And that\u2019s going to make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, it affected the entire recording process. \u201cWhen we did Dark Side, there were four of us in the studio most of the time,\u201d he said. \u201cWith Wish You Were Here, we came and went. If it got a bit boring, you\u2019d go away for the weekend and leave Dave to carry on with the guitar parts.\u201d<\/p>\n

That explains why Wish You Were Here is the first Pink Floyd album in which Mason had no co-writing credits. By then the writing had become less collaborative in general. \u201cIt was more a case of Roger bringing in something that\u2019s ready to go,\u201d Mason said.<\/p>\n

Proof can be found on the new set by a demo Waters made of Welcome to the Machine, here simply titled Machine Song. The bulk of the final song is already apparent from what Waters created himself, though the demo also features some eerie\/cool sound effects that didn\u2019t make the official cut. Way before such songs were even formed, the group went down a daft, but fascinating, rabbit hole. The original idea was to construct the music entirely from random objects, like rubber bands, wine glasses and brooms \u2013 no formal instruments allowed, a notion inspired by the work of artists like John Cage. It wouldn\u2019t be the first time Pink Floyd banished conventional instruments. On their 1969 album Ummagumma, one track was constructed entirely from manipulated mouth noises provided by Waters, designed to imitate the sounds of various animals. They called their later attempt in that direction The Household Objects Project, an idea that \u201cwent absolutely nowhere\u201d, Mason said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Even so, two of its tracks eventually found their way out. One, titled Wine Glasses, appears again on the new set. Some glassy sounds from those sessions also made their way to the final mix of Shine on You Crazy Diamond. After the Household Objects idea went south, the band had another wacky notion. \u201cWe were individually left in the studio to put down some sounds, then the others would come in and put down some sounds on the same tape without reference to the original thing put down,\u201d Mason said. \u201cFrankly, it was madness.\u201d<\/p>\n

A far better approach he now thinks, would have been to continue touring with Dark Side for some time rather than rushing back to the studio. It wasn\u2019t until months into the recording process that formal songs finally began to emerge. At that point, by April 1975, the band returned to the road, performing the best parts they\u2019d developed so far. The new set features sixteen tracks from that tour, including two songs that ended up on the final album, including Shine on and Have a Cigar, along with formative runs at the songs Raving and Drooling and You\u2019ve Got to be Crazy, which didn\u2019t find a studio home until their Animals album in 1977 under the titles Sheep and Dogs, respectively. To Mason, playing untested material before an audience has \u201can enormous benefit. The problem with recording is that the tendency is to record it to the point where you\u2019ve got it right and then you stop,\u201d he said, \u201cWhat works far better is to not only get it right, but to develop it. Only paranoia about bootlegging stopped us from doing that later.\u201d (Ironically, the 1975 live parts of the set comes from a bootleg).<\/p>\n

Another rare track on the set unearths a take on the title song that features an extended jazz violin solo from Stephane Grappelli, barely a bit of which made the official version. Initially, the band also tried to use the esteemed classical violinist Yehudi Menuhin on the track but backed off because, as Mason explains, \u201cYehudi absolutely could not improvise, even when pushed by Stephane. It was hard to understand why.\u201d<\/p>\n

All told, the formal recording process of Wish You Were Here, following those false starts, took six months. Regardless of the mess they\u2019d started with, the final work wasn\u2019t only highly focused, it also became their most personal statement ever. While Dark Side explored the mysteries of the inner life, this album dealt with the real world the band now found themselves in. Two of its songs \u2013 Welcome to the Machine and Have a Cigar \u2013 railed against the greed and manipulations of the music business, using that as a metaphor for the individual crushed at the hands of the system. Those tracks were matched to a pair that found the band confronting their own past (Shine On and the title song). The latter reflected the oft told, and bizarre, story of their estranged, mentally unwell original leader, Syd Barrett, showing up unannounced in the studio at one of the sessions looking disheveled and disoriented. \u201cNo one had the slightest idea that was going to happen, or how he even knew we were working there that day,\u201d Mason said. \u201cIt was so odd.\u201d<\/p>\n

The emotional fall-out from that resulted in Waters refocusing lyrics he had already begun writing on Barrett\u2019s lost promise. Mason believes the reason those songs, as well as the two about the music business, wound up resonating so deeply with listeners is because their true subject is \u201cdistance and absence\u201d.<\/p>\n

Pink Floyd Photograph: Storm Thorgerson\/Sony Music Entertainment<\/p>\n

To Mason, those themes offered \u201ca kind of prelude to the thinking on The Wall,\u201d a classic expression of alienation that became another mega-blockbuster for the band. It\u2019s interesting that songs which complain about the treatment of artists in the music industry arose just then, given that the band had just experienced an astounding windfall of success with Dark Side. Mason credits a key part of Dark Side\u2019s commercial impact to the marketing savvy of EMI\u2019s label chief, Bhasker Menon \u2013 ironic since, by the time of its breakthrough, the band had already signed a new contract with CBS, thus leaving their greatest benefactor in the lurch. \u201cIn many ways we behaved far worse than the record company,\u201d Mason said with a laugh.<\/p>\n

The album the band finally delivered to CBS matched those highly emotional lyrics to songs dominated by explorative instrumental sections. \u201cIn that aspect, this really is a musician\u2019s record,\u201d Mason said. He thinks that may be why guitarist David Gilmour and the late keyboardist Rick Wright have called Wish their favorite Floyd album. Mason loves that it showcases so much of Wright\u2019s visionary keyboard work. \u201cIf ever there was someone who was underrated and under-sung,\u201d its Wright, Mason said.<\/p>\n

Matching the impact of the music was the album\u2019s cover, which famously featured a man on fire. The idea, according to Aubrey \u201cPo\u201d Powell, co-creator of the design company behind it, Hipgnosis, was to provide a visual corollary to Waters\u2019 incendiary lyrics. \u201cGeorge Hardie, one of our collaborators, said at a company meeting, \u2018people get burned in deals in the industry all the time,\u201d Powell said. \u201cThen Storm (Thorgerson, his partner in Hipgnosis) said, \u2018I got it! It will be two businessmen shaking hands with one being burnt in the deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cover of Wish You Were Here. Photograph: f8 archive\/Alamy<\/p>\n

Because Photoshop was years from being invented, however, that meant they would have to hire a stuntman and set him on fire for real. The one they found, Ronnie Rondell Jr, told Powell it was an insanely dangerous stunt since he would have to stand still, and the slightest breeze would turn him into a human blowtorch. Luckily, on the day of the shoot, the air was dead still so, after enduring 15 takes with Powell shooting as fast as he could, he got the shot, leaving only a singe of Rondell\u2019s eyebrows and moustache as a consequence. When Rondell died last year, the headlines all identified him as the man from the Wish You Were Here cover. \u201cRonnie always told me, \u2018I\u2019ve done thousands of stunts but the one thing everybody remembers is that damn cover,\u2019\u201d Powell said, with a laugh.<\/p>\n

The flaming image was one of several striking pieces in the package. Another, featuring a red scarf wafting through the air, extends the album\u2019s theme of absence. \u201cThat was a nod to Syd Barrett\u2019s mental state,\u201d Powell said. \u201cHow much is he present or not present?\u201d<\/p>\n

The notion to offer fans multiple images in the package was to \u201cadd to the joy\u201d of it, said Powell. That\u2019s also why they got the impish idea to shield the cover in black plastic, a move that was also meant to underscore the theme of absence. At the same time, the packaging was \u201csupposed to be like a Christmas present where you don\u2019t know what\u2019s inside\u201d, Powell said. \u201cOf course, the record company hated it because we were covering up all these expensive images. But the band had total creative control, so they had to back off.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the band, such images perfectly suited the music and words they\u2019d taken such trouble to create. \u201cWish You Were Here was harder work than almost any album we ever did,\u201d Mason said. \u201cBut, at the end of the day, we came out with something that we\u2019re still talking about today.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By almost every measure, from commercial reward to creative reach, Pink Floyd scaled its peak on Dark Side…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216],"class_list":{"0":"post-344644","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}