Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here was one of the first albums I bought (a late starter, I didn't start buying LPs until I went to University in 1977). It's long since disappeared from my vinyl collection - probably as a result of a burglary a couple of decades ago. Of course pretty soon after I started buying LPs, bands like Pink Floyd were excoriated as rock dinosaurs during punk rock's year zero...
Probably it's a function of my age, but I've started paying a bit more attention to some of this old stuff recently, and just the other day I downloaded a copy of Wish You Were Here from Amazon. And what do I think of it over three decades after I first listened to it?
Well, first off, I still love the sound of it. But I guess I find the agonising a bit much.
In the great mythology of The Pink Floyd, they lose their troubled genius Syd Barrett who became one of the great 1960s rock casualties after steering the band to their debut album (which I would claim to be one of their best), only to develop into one of the great stadium bands. In this mythology (and I have no reason to doubt their oft-repeated claims) it was while recording their overt tribute to their lost leader, Shine on you Crazy Diamond, that Barrett turned up in the studio. And they didn't recognise him. Which is a bit sad considering their concern as expressed in that song among others (including the title track).
And of course the beginnings of the self-obsessed "isn't success, with all it's trappings of wealth and fame" themes in their work. All pretty self-indulgent, but at least a bit more subdued than the ultimate expression in The Wall.
Nevertheless, It's a great nostalgia trip for this listener as he approaches his half century. Sadly, the download copy lacks George Hardie's "handshake" graphic (see above), which graced the black shrinkwrap that contained the LP copy I bought all those years ago.