Chords for Understanding Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here

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_ What's the cost of fame?
This [F] question is at the center of one of my favorite albums [Dm] ever,
Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd.
Released as the [E] follow-up to their legendary Dark Side of the Moon,
the album holds a strange [Am] place in their catalog.
[G] The band wrote it while struggling with the realities of fame.
They had trouble finding inspiration [E] and they would barely even look each other in the eye in the studio.
The result was a [Am] melancholic album that was one part lament for their fallen comrade, [G] Sid Barrett,
[Am] and one part [Dm] vitriolic takedown of the industry that they [E] blame for their strife.
Let's take a closer look.
[Am] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [C] _ [F] _
[E] _ [Dm] _ _ _ To understand Wish You Were Here, we need to know the story of Sid Barrett.
Barrett was Pink Floyd's original guitarist and vocalist,
[G] but in the late 1960s, his heavy LSD use started to take its toll.
Barrett started to behave erratically and unpredictably.
[Am] Nowadays, a lot of people think that he [E] suffered from schizophrenia.
Despite [Am]
Barrett's deep ties [C] to Pink Floyd, the band eventually had to replace him,
when he became more and more [G] disconnected with reality.
The group [Am] brought in David Gilmour to [Em] replace Barrett's guitar,
and soon, [Am] Barrett was out of the band entirely.
[G] In the subsequent years, [Am] his mental state deteriorated farther, and [Em] he dropped off the map for a [Am] period.
Sid Barrett's [Em] tragic demise became the inspiration [Am] for Wish You Were Here's focal point,
[Em] Shine On You Crazy Diamond.
[F] _
Split into two [E] tracks and nine sections, Shine On [Am] bookends Wish You Were Here.
[Em] The song is built out from a four-note guitar theme that Roger [Gm] Waters thought sounded like the lingering ghost of Sid Barrett. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
One day, while Pink Floyd were working on Shine On, that ghost [Bb] appeared to them in the [Gm] studio.
As they were laying down the track, a large, bald, dazed Sid Barrett paid the band a visit.
Members of Pink Floyd talked about it in the story of Wish You Were Here. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ You know, the _ _ _ _ imagining what he would have gone on to do is_
_ Speculating on that, if you like, is_
He could have become so great.
After visiting for a little bit, Barrett slipped away and was never seen in public again.
Sid Barrett died in 2006 at the age of 60.
Shine On You Crazy Diamond serves as a way [Em] for the band to search for their [Am] lost friend.
For two songs [Em] that total almost half an hour together, [Am] it's got pretty sparse [G] lyrics.
In those lyrics, we can [C] find one line [F] that connects the song to the rest of the album. _ _ _
[Gm] _ _ _ _ _ _ [Gb] _ _
_ _ _ [Bb] Pink _ _ [Em] Floyd think that stardom is at least partially responsible [Am] for Barrett's [Em] collapse.
It's well known that the music industry will chew [Am] up and [Em] spit out creative individuals,
and the band explore that theme throughout the middle of the album.
Welcome to the Machine is sung from the perspective of a music industry [F] professional talking to a creative.
[E] Without caring who the artist really is, the label will [Em] sell them with this manufactured, _ cliched [C] biography. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _
_ [Em] _ _ No, you're nobody's fool
_ In _ _ _ _ _ the second verse, Pink Floyd [Bm] sing about the manufactured destiny of rock [Em] stars.
[C] _ What did you dream?
_ _ [A] It's alright, we told you [Em] what to dream
_ _ You
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [C] _ dreamed of a pink star
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [E] _
You played a mean [Em] guitar
_ [Bm] _
The _ _ _ [Gb] song is full of ominous, [G] imposing music and mechanical [C] sound [B] effects.
It reflects [Em] the cold, inhuman nature of the [C] industry.
[N] The song closes on the sound of an industry party, full of posturing without [Em] any real human connection.
The next song is just as vitriolic towards the music industry.
It's also sung from the perspective of a music industry executive.
[C] This time, the [Am] executive is selling Pink [Em] Floyd on the money and success,
but he [F] doesn't even take [Em] time to learn who the band members [E] are.
The band is just [Em]
fantastic, that [C] is really what I think.
[D] Oh by the way, which [E] one's King?
_ _ That's a reference to real interactions that the band had with executives,
who frequently pushed numbers and chart success [F] on them without actually caring about [Em] their musical aspirations.
[F] The album's [C] packaging reflects these jaded themes too.
Look at the front cover, which [Am] features a business [G] deal being done with one side literally [Am] getting burned.
On the [Em] back of the album, we see a faceless [Am] businessman in a desert,
reflecting [G] the barren, inhuman nature of [Am] industry executives in Pink Floyd's [C] eyes.
David Gilmour told Redbeard [Am] that the band was in a state of [G]
disillusionment during this album.
[C] Everything had sort of come our [Em] way and you had to reassess what you were in it for [Am] thereafter,
and it was a [Em] pretty confusing and sort of empty [Am] time for a while.
This [Em] comes out in the album's title track, which [F] ties the [G] coldness of the industry to the loss of Syd _ _ _ _ [D] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [C] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [Am]
Barrett.
_ _ _ _ _ _ [G] _
_ _ _ _ Wish You Were Here can be seen as a clear [C] lament to Barrett,
wishing he was [Am] with the band and [G] wishing he had his mental faculties,
[Am] but at the same time, it's a reflection of [Em] the band's own feeling.
They were [C] disconnected, [Am] uninspired, [G] they didn't feel like they were present.
[Am] In a lot of ways, the band draws [Em] comparisons between the deterioration of [C] their own relationships
[Am] and that [G] of Barrett's mental state throughout the [C] album.
_ Just as [Em] Barrett's mental illness had him losing grip on his [Am] own humanity,
[Em] the industry pressures were [Am] causing Pink Floyd to lose grip on their [Em] humanity.
Wish You Were Here is [Am] a heartbreaking snapshot [Em] of Pink Floyd's own state in time,
and [F] I think it's a testament to the band [E] that in a time where they were disconnected [Am] and bitter,
they were able to create something so incredibly emotional and human.
You like to imagine that it would have made Syd Barrett proud. _ _ _ _
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