Roger Waters: “‘Wish You Were here’ I wrote it in an hour”

“Wish you were here” It is undoubtedly one of the best known and loved songs of Pink Floyd. The song is the title track of the album released in 1975, the ninth of the British band.

“Wish you were here”
as well as another song on the disc,
“Shine on you Crazy Diamond”
is considered a tribute to
Syd Barrett
– the former partner who had left the group seven years earlier and who died in 2006 – due to the worsening of his mental health.

Some time ago, in an interview with
Dan Rather
,
Roger Waters
he told the story of
“Wish you were here”
. It is one of those strange songs that came very easily, David Gilmour was playing the riff, I had listened to it and I wondered, ‘What is it? Play it again ‘. So I learned it and said, ‘And then what happens?’, And he ‘no, it’s over. I replied, ‘I like it, do you mind if I see what happens later?’. So I played some agreement and wrote the song very, very quickly, if I remember correctly, probably within an hour. It was one of those happy moments in which the flow of consciousness works and the words emerge with a precise meter and meaning, they are musical and adapt to a melody. So I don’t try to investigate them too much. It would be a bit like investigating a butterfly: you would find yourself with dust and a few broken pieces. ”

He then continued saying: “It was all a matter of absence, in a certain sense he concerned the loss of Syd Barrett, who had given to the mental illness seven or eight years earlier.” Roger Waters described Barrett as “A fascinating, exuberant and talented friend. I miss. But I have been missing since 1968 because it has fallen into a sort of mental illness, which we could call schizophrenia. You can call this combination of symptoms as you want, but the fact is that if it happens to someone, it prevents him from communicating. Those people really develop a wall. He developed a wall and was extremely sad.”

Roger Waters
He explained that his father, who died in the Second World War, was also a fundamental part of
“Wish you
Were here “
. “Of course. Everything brings back to my father. And to my mother. My father was a central figure in everything.”

About the recordings of
“Wish you were here”
The keyboardist of
Pink Floyd Richard Wright
Once he told of a very touching moment: “I remember having entered the studio and Roger was already there to work. I entered and sat down next to Roger. After 10 minutes he asked me: ‘Do you know who is that guy?’