"Shine on You Crazy Diamond" by Pink Floyd, Wednesday, December 15, 2021

What do you do after you record one of the best-selling albums of all time? Following the massive success of their 1973 album, Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd struggled in the studio with their follow up. Music executives pressured them to have another hit album. The band couldn't get along during these sessions. This theme of the music industry's pressure can be heard on the tracks "Welcome to the Machine" and "Have a Cigar." However, it was as the band was enjoying the peak of their success, their lyrical themes turned to their friend and former band leader, Syd Barrett, whose mental health had led to his departure in 1968. Pink Floyd had gone from a top-5 charting psychedelic pop group to an experimental rock group whose music became too obscure for radio. But following Dark Side, the band an era of critical acclaim and millions of albums sales. And Wish You Were Here lamented the loss of a friend who couldn't share in the band's success. 

YOU WERE CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE OF CHILDHOOD AND STARDOM. "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" is the longest track that has made my song of the day list by far, and I have the guitar riff being stuck in my head all day from watching Nick Canovas' "Deep Discog Dive: Pink Floyd" on his YouTube channel Mic the Snare this morning. As many kids who have a Pink Floyd phase in middle and high school, I've done some reading on the band over the years, so many of the details in the video weren't new to me. I've listened to songs from Dark Side of the Moon to The Wall and have had theories about which songs were about the band's former frontman. In Canovas' opinion about today's song, he says:

     ['Shine on You Crazy Diamond'] feels like a dedication to a person…I mean a full person. Your

    experiences with them, the great times with them, the low points where they frustrated you, their

    strengths, their flaws, and the cumulative looking back on all the time you shared together.

Just as "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," encrypted the title with a hidden message of LSD, Pink Floyd hid Syd's name in the titled (Shine on You crazy Diamond). 

 

COME ON YOU PAINTER, YOU PIPER, YOU PRISONER, AND SHINE! After recording three songs on their upcoming album about their friend whom they hadn't seen in years, a mysterious man showed up in the studio during the mixing and mastering of Wish You Were Here. No one recognized him. He had a shaved head, shaved eyebrows, wore all white, and was fat. Later on the band realized that Syd Barrett had visited the band in the studio. He was unrecognizable and he was continuing to lose his sanity. This was the last time the band would be together when they saw their old friend, although Barrett lived until 2006. "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" bookending the record references Barrett's life and the band's career, referencing the band's early work including their first album Piper at the Gates of Dawn, which was a collection of singles during the band's psychedelic pop days. The song also references their top 3 hit, "See Emily Play," which was only released as a single. If Dark Side of the Moon explores how a person degenerates into "insanity", Wish You Were Here tells the story from a different perspective. "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" is a beautiful tribute to an unwell friends, and together with "Wish You Were Here," we get a picture of helplessness as a loved one drifts further and further away from reality. And although Waters sings faster and more adamantly on "Shine on," Barrett needs the kind of help that professionals can offer, not just a friend.

Lyrics: Parts 1-5, Parts 6-9