WishyouEra

SOLO

INDEX

SHINE ON YOU CRAZY DIAMOND (PART 1-5) (David Gilmour, Richard Wright, Roger Waters) in « Wish you were here » (1975) | Produced by Pink Floyd.

Including Part one (Wright, Gilmour, Waters); Part two (Gilmour, Wright, Waters); Part Three (Gilmour, Wright, Waters); Part Four (Gilmour, Wright, Waters); Part Five (Waters)

David Gilmour: electric rhythm guitar, electric lead guitar, vocal harmonies; Rick Wright: keyboards, vocal harmonies, vibraphone; Roger Waters: voice, vocal harmonies, bass, VCS3; Nick Mason: drums; Dick Parry: baritone and tenor saxophones; Venetta Fields, Carlena Williams: backing vocals.

Brian Humphries (Pink Floyd sound engineer):

« Shine On You Crazy Diamond» was recorded in three different sections, and when I tried editing the first and second sections together the timing was off, so they had to re–record the first one. We could put echo on the control room monitors on certain tracks, and I recall sitting with Rick Wright and him saying, ‘I love the organ. Can you take the echo off?’ I said, ‘I haven’t put any on,’ to which he responded, ‘Well, there’s echo on there.’ And there was. However, I couldn’t get rid of it, and that’s because it wasn’t studio echo, it was down on tape. Nobody — not even the technical people at Abbey Road — knew how the desk worked. Being that I was the first outside engineer to be working there, I felt they were looking for any excuse to get me out of there and have one of their in–house guys do the job. This all happened on a Friday evening and I was expecting to get fired on the Monday morning. Instead the band members just agreed to record both sections again because they felt they could do them better »

« Pink Floyd Shine on you crazy diamond », soundonsound.com, December 2014.

Interviewer: «Roger once said you lifted the intro from the theme tune to the 1950s radio show Take if from here …»

David Gilmour: «Absolute bollocks. Someone made that connection later, but it’s something I will not have. These stories do the rounds. I know, but there is much more truth to the one that Interstellar Overdrive came form My little red book and the theme tune from Steptoe and Son»

«Caught in the crossfire», Mojo Special Edition, 2020

«Remember when you were young

You shone like the sun

Shine on, you crazy diamond

Now there's a look in your eyes

Like black holes in the sky

Shine on, you crazy diamond

You were caught on the crossfire

Of childhood and stardom

Blown on the steel breeze

Come on, you target for faraway laughter

Come on, you stranger

You legend, you martyr, and shine

You reached for the secret too soon

You cried for the moon

Shine on, you crazy diamond

Threatened by shadows at night

And exposed in the light

Shine on, you crazy diamond

Well, you wore out your welcome

With random precision

Rode on the steel breeze

Come on, you raver

You seer of visions

Come on, you painter

You piper, you prisoner, and shine»

WELCOME TO THE MACHINE (Roger Waters) in « Wish you were here» (1975) | Produced by Pink Floyd.

David Gilmour: Guitars, bass, EMS VCS3 syntheMzer-A, lead vocals; Rick Wright: ARP syntheMzer, Hammond Organ; Roger Waters: Lead vocals, bass; Nick Mason: Drums, Timpani;

Roger Waters:

« It's very much a made-up-in-the-studio thing which was all built up from a basic throbbing made on a VCS 3, with a one repeat echo used so that each 'boom' is followed by an echo repeat to give the throb. With a number like that, you don't start off with a regular concept of group structure or anything, and there's no backing track either. Really it is just a studio proposition where we're using tape for its own ends -- a form of collage using sound »

«A Rambling Conversation with Roger Waters concerning All this and that », Wish you were here songbook, 1975

David Gilmour:
« It's quite easy to make an audio illusion, you know, to create one, like you know, the one of the door opening and people being behind that door. It's a very easy thing to do. You just have a sound of this thing, the buzzing "mmmmmmmmmmm" of the door opening well you've got to get some sort of humming noise and then you just fade up a fader with talking and laughing and clinking of glasses noises. And it sounds just like the door's opening and you can suddenly hear all these people at the other side of it. And those things are very very simple audio illusions that one can create»

« Shade of Pink», The Source, 1984.

Welcome my son

Welcome to the machine

Where have you been?

It's alright, we know where you've been

You've been in the pipeline, filling in time

Provided with toys and 'Scouting for Boys'

You bought a guitar to punish your ma

And you didn't like school

And you know you're nobody's fool

So welcome to the machine

Welcome my son

Welcome to the machine

What did you dream?

It's alright, we told you what to dream

You dreamed of a big star

He played a mean guitar

He always ate in the Steak Bar

He loved to drive in his Jaguar

So welcome to the Machine

HAVE A CIGAR (Roger Waters) in « Wish you were here » (1975) | Produced by Pink Floyd

David Gilmour: Electric guitars; Roger Waters: Bass guitar; Richard Wright: Wurlitzer electric piano, ARP String Synthesizer, Minimoog, Hohner clavinet D6, piano; Nick Mason: Drums; Roy Harper: Lead vocals.

For unknown reasons, the LP version of this track contains 4-bar extra final solo.

David Gilmour:

«There were two other recording studios in operation there at the time, and we would be in one room and there'd either be the Beatles or the Hollies or the Pretty Things or Roy Harper or any number of other people um, recording at the same time, and we would get to know all these people of course, and we'd sit, you know, down in the EMI canteen and we'd chat with these people and stuff, and we got to know Roy quite well. Roy was always hustling, saying, you know, "let me do something", "let me sing something", "let me write some words for you or something".

We were always saying "Fuck off Roy!", I mean - or, "No no Roy!", I mean... sorry, we are on radio. And, you know, he just obviously came in the room, I can't really remember - he obviously came in the room at a certain point when we were doing that song and said "Hey! let me sing that!" and we said "Oh, all right, off you go, here's the words" and, you know it wasn't a thought-out thing. We didn't think "Hey, we must get Roy Harper to sing this song". I mean it's just one of those things that happens on the day, at that moment in time, in the studio, erm, and boom - there it was. And we thought "Hey, that's OK". Well, I thought it was great. Roger didn't like it that much actually»

«David Gilmour interview», Australian Radio, February 1988.

Roger Waters:

« ... a lot of people think I can't sing, including me a bit. I'm very unclear about what singing is. I know I find it hard to pitch, and I know the sound of my voice isn't very good in purely aesthetic terms, and Roy Harper was recording his own album in another EMI studio at the time, he's a mate, and we thought he could probably do a job on it »

«A Rambling Conversation with Roger Waters concerning All this and that », Wish you were here songbook, 1975

Roger Waters:

« For example, 'Have a Cigar'. The verses, (tune and words) were all written before I ever played it to the others. Except the stuff before and after the vocal, that happened in the studio. The same with 'Welcome to the Machine' -- the verses were done, but the run up and out was in the studio. 'Dark Side' was done much more with us all working together. We all sat in a room for ages and ages -- we'd got a whole lot of pieces of music and I put an idea over the whole thing and wrote the words. Having laid lyrics on the different bits we decided what order to put them in, and how to link them. It wasn't like the concept came first and then we worked right through it »

«A Rambling Conversation with Roger Waters concerning All this and that », Wish you were here songbook, 1975

«Come in here, dear boy, have a cigar

You're gonna go far

You're gonna fly high

You're never gonna die

You're gonna make it if you try

They're gonna love you

Well I've always had a deep respect

And I mean that most sincerely

The band is just fantastic

That is really what I think

Oh by the way, which one's Pink ?

And did we tell you the name of the game, boy

We call it riding the gravy train

We're just knocked out

We heard about the sell-out

You gotta get an album out

You owe it to the people

We're so happy we can hardly count

Everybody else is just green

Have you seen the chart?

It's a hell of a start

It could be made into a monster

If we all pull together as a team

And did we tell you the name of the game, boy

We call it riding the gravy train»

WISH YOU WERE HERE Incl. Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony (Roger Waters, David Gilmour) in « Wish you were here » (1975) | Produced by Pink Floyd.

David Gilmour: Lead and harmony vocals, scat singing, six and twelve-string acoustic guitars, pedal steel guitar, tape effects; Roger Waters: Bass, tape effects; Nick Mason: drums, tape effects; Richard Wright: Steinway piano, Minimoog.

Roger Waters:

« I suppose you could say within the context of that record it...maybe...it was more about Syd Barrett than about anyone else. Though I would have to try and remember all the lyrics - no, it think it was - it was more a general song about feeling a sense of loss when you're not with somebody that you love, or have loved ».

« Interview by satellite », ANZ Rockcast, May 1988.

David Gilmour:

«Wish You Were Here’ happened in the studio when was plonking that riff on the 12-string. I [first] played in the control room of Studio 3 at Abbey Road. It was just something I’d been strumming at home and Roger immediately said ‘What’s that?’ We immediately worked it up and wrote the rest of the music».

«The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett Story», 2001.

«… and disciplinary remains mercifully

- Yes and um, I’m with you Derek, this star nonsense

- Yes, yes

- Now which is it ?

- I am sure of it»

So, so you think you can tell

Heaven from Hell

Blue skies from pain

Can you tell a green field

From a cold steel rail

A smile from a veil

Do you think you can tell ?

Did they get you to trade

Your heroes for ghosts

Hot ashes for trees

Hot air for a cool breeze

Cold comfort for change

Did you exchange

A walk on part in the war

For a lead role in a cage?

How I wish

How I wish you were here

We're just two lost souls

Swimming in a fish bowl

Year after year

Running over the same old ground

What have we found?

The same old fears

Wish you were here

SHINE ON YOU CRAZY DIAMOND (PART 6-9) (David Gilmour, Richard Wright, Roger Waters) in « Wish you were here » (1975) | Produced by Pink Floyd.

Including Part Six (Wright, Gilmour, Waters); Part Seven (Gilmour, Wright, Waters); Part Eight (Gilmour, Wright, Waters); Part Nine (Wright)

David Gilmour: electric rhythm and lead guitars, pedal steel guitar, bass, vocal harmonies; Rick Wright: keyboards, vocal harmonies; Roger Waters: vocals, bass guitar; Nick Mason: drums; Venetta Fields, Carlena Williams: backing singers.

Roger Waters:

« It’s my homage to Syd and my heartfelt expression of ... my admiration for the talent and my sadness for the loss of the friend. There are no generalities really in that song. It’s not about all the crazy diamonds. It’s about Syd »

« Pink Floyd: The Story of Wish You Were Here », 2012

David Gilmour:

« (…) By the time of Shine on … I think our love and respect for Syd outweighed any desire to be free of the demon of Syd. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with us doing a song that had something to do with Syd Barrett »

« Caught in the Crossfire », Mojo Special Edition, 2020.

«Nobody knows where you are

How near or how far

Shine on you crazy diamond

Pile on many more layers

And I’ll be joining you there

Shine on you crazy diamond

And we’ll bask in the shadow of yesterday’s triumph

And sail on the steel breeze

Come on you boy child, you winner and loser

Come on you miner for truth and delusion, and shine!»