Concept
Wish You Were Here is the second Pink Floyd album to use a conceptual theme written entirely by Waters. It reflects his feeling that the camaraderie that had served the band previously was, by then, largely absent. The album begins with a long instrumental preamble and segues into the lyrics for "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", a tribute to former band member Syd Barrett—whose mental breakdown had forced him to leave the band several years before. Barrett is fondly recalled with lines such as "Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun" and "You reached for the secret too soon, you cried for the moon".
Wish You Were Here is also a critique of the music business. "Shine On" crosses seamlessly into "Welcome to the Machine", a song that begins with an opening door (described by Waters as a symbol of musical discovery and progress betrayed by a music industry more interested in greed and success) and ends with a party, the latter epitomising "the lack of contact and real feelings between people". Similarly, "Have a Cigar" scorns record industry "fatcats"; its lyrics contain well-used clichés such as "can hardly count", "they call it riding the gravy train" and "by the way, which one's Pink?"—a question asked of the band on at least one occasion. "Wish You Were Here" contains lyrics which relate not only to Barrett's condition, but also to the dichotomy of Waters' character, as an idealist, and a domineering personality. The album closes with a reprise of "Shine On" and further instrumental excursions.
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Famous quotes containing the word concept:
“The latest creed that has to be believed
And entered in our childish catechism
Is that the All’s a concept self-conceived,
Which is no more than good old Pantheism.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“There is a concept that is the corrupter and destroyer of all others. I speak not of Evil, whose limited empire is that of ethics; I speak of the infinite.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)
“It is impossible to dissociate language from science or science from language, because every natural science always involves three things: the sequence of phenomena on which the science is based; the abstract concepts which call these phenomena to mind; and the words in which the concepts are expressed. To call forth a concept, a word is needed; to portray a phenomenon, a concept is needed. All three mirror one and the same reality.”
—Antoine Lavoisier (1743–1794)