Wish You Were Here is the ninth studio album by the English rock band Pink Floyd, released in September 1975. The album's iconic cover images were photographed by Aubrey "Po" Powell and inspired by the idea that people tend to conceal their true feelings, for fear of "getting burned", and thus two businessmen were pictured shaking hands, one man on fire. "Getting burned" was also a common phrase in the music industry, used often by artists denied royalty payments.
Wish You Were Here is the ninth studio album by the English rock band Pink Floyd, released in September 1975. Like their previous record, The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), Pink Floyd used studio effects and synthesisers. Wish You Were Here received mixed reviews from critics on its release, who found its music to be uninspiring and inferior to their previous work. It has retrospectively received critical acclaim. The album reached number one in the US and UK and sold an estimated 13 million copies. Recorded at Abbey Road Studios, the album's themes include criticism of the music business, alienation and a tribute to founding member Syd Barrett, who left seven years earlier with deteriorating mental health issues. The lyrics of the title song relate both to Barrett's condition and to the dichotomy of Roger Waters' character, with greed and ambition battling with compassion and idealism. David Gilmour and Roger Waters collaborated to write the music and Gilmour sang the lead vocal. Both Gilmour and Waters have praised the song as one of Pink Floyd's finest, playfully calling it "a very simple country song" and "because of its resonance and the emotional weight it carries, it is one of our best songs." A noted part of the song was a planned contribution by Stéphane Grappelli. A jazz violinist popular at the time and well known for his collaborations with Yehudi Menuhin. Both violinists were recording in a downstairs studio at Abbey Road at the time. Gilmour had suggested that there be a little "country fiddle" at the end of the song and invited them to participate. Grappelli duly obliged (Menuhin declined) on arranging a session fee of £300, equivalent to £2,500 in 2020. Ultimately during mixing it was decided to almost remove his contribution, although it can just be heard in the instrumental break after the second verse. According to Waters it was decided that it would be insulting to credit Grappelli in the sleeve notes for something so inaudible, although he did receive the agreed-upon fee. The album's iconic cover images were photographed by Aubrey "Po" Powell and inspired by the idea that people tend to conceal their true feelings, for fear of "getting burned", and thus two businessmen were pictured shaking hands, one man on fire. "Getting burned" was also a common phrase in the music industry, used often by artists denied royalty payments.
