This Programme contains some strong Language.
# How I wish How I wish you Were here
# We're just two lost Souls Swimming in a Fish Bowl
# Year After Year
# Running over the Same old Ground
# What We have found?
# The Same old fears
# Wish you Were here. #
It did Stem from Those first four Notes
That popped out one of the Guitar Day in King's Cross.
Somehow, Those Notes evoked a Song About Syd
and HIS Disappearance, Absence, if you Like, in Roger.
It's My homage to Syd
My heartfelt and Expression of My Sadness and ...
for the Loss of the friend.
# You Were caught in the crossfire
# Of Childhood stardom and
# Blown on the steel Breeze. #
I Think the Song is Brilliant in ITS Sort of evocation of What
Obviously Roger felt About Syd, and Certainly , it matches mine.
What was I Think SO Important was not to try
and write HIM out of History.
# Come on, you Stranger
# You legend, you Martyr
# And shine! #
There are no generalities, really, in That Song.
It's not About, "All the Crazy Diamonds" , it's about Syd.
AND THEY Vocalize EMIT noises
When I first SAW the Floyd, I Remember ...
I Mean, the first thing you Noticed was the Lights,
Because nobody was doing That then. At least I hadn't seen it.
But Syd Started to really shine.
You know, you couldn ' t really take your eyes off him,
even in the murk and the purple and green Blobs, you know,
the bright-eyed Syd and his singing and his guitar playing
kind of jumped out at you.
# Blinding signs flap Flicker, flicker, flicker
# Blam ... Pow! Pow!
# Da, Da-Da, Da, Da-Da, Da-Da
# Da-Da , da-da
# Ooooh! #
By the time I was working with Them in the Studio,
IT Clear That was the Real Shape of creative the group emanated
from Syd, Although,
you know, IT Certainly was not Syd and backing Group.
Syd was a very wonderful CHAP.
Very, very witty. Very, very sharp.
You know, He was out-going, charming, wonderful, Friendly.
You Name it. I mean, a wonderful man.
He was one of the Gang, I guess you'd Say.
A good friend. Funny.
Rather annoying, Though - Good Looking He was
and Played Guitar and Could paint,
Always HAD nice and Girlfriends.
No-one That you really Ever Would have imagined
Would wind up the way He did wind up.
# Remember When you Were Young
# You shone like the sun
# Shine on, you Crazy Diamond. #
# Little by Little The night Turns around
# Counting the leaves Which Tremble at Dawn
# Ah, aaah, AH, aaah, AH
# Ah, aaah, AH, aaah, AH
# Heart of the sun
# Heart of the sun. #
In this Post Dark Side Of The Moon period,
We Were All having to ASSESS
What We Were in this for Business,
why We Were doing IT, Whether We Were Artists or Business People.
Having Achieved the Sort of Success
and money out of IT All That ...
fulfil That Could anyone's wildest Teenage Dreams,
why We still Would Want to Continue to do IT.
Yeah, I remember the disappointment of Top Of The Pops
or having the first hit single or whatever.
It's not as world-shaking
and as changing Perhaps you expect IT to be.
So maybe, you know, Because of the enormous success
of Dark Side, there was still That sense of,
"Well, this Has not made us feel enormously different or satisfied. "
Roger, I Think, Sometimes Has He Thinks That said
That We Were kind of finished at that point,
He and May have Been right.
I Think We Were at a watershed then ,
and We Could Easily have Split up then.
And We did not, Because We Were Frightened
of the Great out there, Beyond the Umbrella
of this extraordinarily Powerful and Valuable Trade Name - Pink Floyd.
It was the first Song They Played, and IT was Like, "Whoa,"
IT was Like Singing About Syd Barrett.
The Band That was known for Their musicality,
They Were not doing Their Music Justice.
Do you Recall there was a Famous Review by Nick Kent?
How Could I forget?
I kind of over-reacted, Obviously.
I Mean, now I Feel That I over-reacted,
but at the Same time, partly They deserved IT.
It was a Bad Gig.
It was, it was shambolic.
I Mean IT was ... IT Lacked enthusiasm and IT Lacked a Sort of Purpose,
a sense of Purpose, and I do not really know why.
From My perspective now, to Look back upon How I felt then,
as I was Scared of My Own Shadow, you know,
Never Mind My Relationship with Audiences,
and there Were Real Concerns About not making any Contact
with the audience DURING That much of Tour of England
That We did in 1974.
And We did not. We were ... we were very disconnected.
If We Were not Giving 100%, we couldn't quite sort out why not.
You know, there was an element of Frustration
in having someone tell us That.
I Think We Probably knew it and couldn't quite sort of deal with it.
That Review Would have Been one of the Things Which Would have -
once we'd got over Our Initial IRE - We Would have Taken on Board
and realised That there was More than a germ of Truth in IT.
I was Asked to Record at the Floyd What was then Called
the Empire Pool, Which is now the Wembley Arena,
When I SAW and the Floyd before They Went on, They said,
"Oh, do us a Favour, Will you go and sit with our sound engineer? "
And I said, "OK."
How Long is IT since you've been here, Brian?
And Anyhow,
"Well, What do you Think?" And I said, "It's rubbish."
Because I'd Been Used to working with Smaller Groups
on Smaller mixing desks, and theirs was massive.
So anyway, Cut a Long Story Short,
next thing I Knew, I was doing the next night at the Empire Pool.
Oh, God, this does Take me back.
And then I ended up doing the rest of the British tour.
Somebody Better just run through this.
And then, as I say, then came Wish You Were Here.
There Were a Lot of days where We did not do anything,
while Were They Thinking About ideas.
That was The Reality We Were Struggling with making the Follow-up
to Dark Side, and We Rushed back in to the Studio to do That.
You know, We Ourselves put under a Sort of ridiculous pressure,
in a way, Trying to make a Record from nothing.
It was disengagement.
It was not Being willing to Apply Yourself sufficiently.
A Lot of Moments where any one of us Might have Been More much
Interested in Thinking About What They Were doing That weekend.
It Became a Case of two Would be in the Studio and two Were running
or late, as IT was Always known, They Were Playing Squash out.
And then We HAD the Dartboard with the Air Rifle.
The Concentrated activity was rather Diluted,
and I'm sure for a ...
Like Roger, was IT More frustrating than IT was for anyone else,
Although considerably frustrating for All of us, I Suspect.
When I'm in the Studio, I'm there to do something,
otherwise I'd rather be somewhere else, frankly.
So I'm there to work.
Well, you know, there's the argument Legendary
That I must have HAD with the rest of Them About ...
.. My Thought at the time IT That Would be Better to use
the two Other Tracks as well That We HAD Been working on.
I HAD to Fight David for a bit, as He acknowledges Completely,
you know.
We HAD a Completely Different idea About IT,
That was and a ... That was a Fight That I Won.
Dave SAW a Record That HAD Those two Songs and Shine On,
and IT felt cobbled Together to me.
It did not Feel Like Real.
And SO at some Point in Process That, yeah,
I Came up with the idea of, "No, this Has to be thematic,"
and That's the way I expressed IT.
This Will make this a More coherent work,
Because IT's and More coherent,
We've Been working on Boom Together and go, there you are, That's IT .
There's one's That Song About Syd, but the rest of IT Is not.
It's a much More Universal expression of my feelings
About Absence ...
.. Because I felt That We Were not really there,
We Were very absent.
I Remembered IT.
# Come in here, dear Boy Have a Cigar
# You're gonna go far. #
"Come in here and have a Cigar,"
you know, and Become a Star and Become Immortal.
# You're gonna make IT if you try
# They're gonna Love you. #
You Become Part of the Whole Buying and selling Machine.
It's High.
I ??Think the Lyrics SO much Sum up the recording Business.
Rock 'n' roll, MAN.
# Come in here, dear Boy Have a Cigar
# You're gonna go far. #
The Record companies Were ... they were all-powerful, in a way.
No-one Worked without a Record Deal in Those days,
so they had a lot of power.
You're not really an Individual longer any More,
You're just ... you're a cipher,
You're Playing a Part, You're a puppet.
You're not your Own MAN.
# The weather's just fantastic That is really What I Think
# Oh , by the way Which one's Pink? #
By the way, Which one is Pink?
Which one's Pink?
Which one's Pink?
# And We did tell you The Name of the game, Boy?
# We call IT Riding the gravy train. #
It was felt Syd That's partly Madness HAD Come About
through the Demands of the Record Industry.
"You've HAD a hit, now I Want you to do Another hit."
"I Want Another hit you, and I want another hit. "
"And That's not as Good as your Last hit."
"That's not as good as your last record, "you know,
"And I Want you to do a Show Bigger and More Lights have
"and More People."
I Mean, IT's ...
"Hey, All I wanted to do is to play a guitar
"and write a Song, and Suddenly I'm in the Middle of All this."
The Star thing does not make ... doesn't make you happy, you know.
That, the Star thing, you CAN make Want to Withdraw from Society.
# It's awfully considerate of you To Think of me here
# And I'm Most Obliged to you For making IT Clear
# That I'm not here. #
Well, you Could Argue That Syd was Burned by the Music Business,
but Actually, He was Probably Burned more by us.
# And I Never Knew the moon ... #
Sort of Syd HAD gone off the idea of doing Top Of The Pops,
Sort of Being and Commercial.
# .. Shoes and Brought me here. #
I Think IT was not the Record Company Putting the pressure on, IT was us
Putting the pressure on , because that's the way we wanted to go.
# I do not Care If the sun does not shine
# And I do not Care If nothing is mine
# And I do not Care If I'm Nervous with you
# I'll do My loving in the Winter. #
# Come in here, dear Boy Have a Cigar
# You're gonna go far
# Fly High ... #
With Have A Cigar,
both of Them Knew That Neither of Them Could Sing IT.
I Always Thought That Dave's Voice was not Deep Enough.
# I've Always HAD a Deep Respect I Mean That Most Sincerely. #
Yeah, That's Dave.
# I Think the Band's fantastic That is really What I Think
# By the way, Which one's Pink? #
That's Roger.
They wanted the Ferocity Which Gives Roger on Other Tracks.
"Come in here, dear Boy, have a Cigar.
"You're gonna go far."
Roy was definitely one of the Great characters around for a Lot
of Our Early ... Our Early life, really.
We Used to do quite a Lot of Shows where Roy Would be on the bill.
A Good Guy to have around.
I was in Studio 2 and they were in Studio 3 .
I Think Roy was rather Actually ...
.. lacking in Momentum Himself.
I Think We Were ...
It did not seem to Affect Only Pink Floyd.
You know, That's why I have this vision,
I guess, of me Being in and out All the time, in and out, in and out.
Very expensive recording time That He Would Spend just
in Our Control Room chattering and ...
Anyway, I digress.
Roger was really Struggling with IT,
and then Dave ... then they both tried.
There was a Lot of arguing About How We Were going to do I
and how we were going to make it work.
At one Point Roy, Who was in the Room, Piped up and said ...
I just said, "I'll do IT if you Like, for a price."
# I've Always HAD a Deep Respect and I mean that most sincerely
I Mean, Roy really put this in HIS Heart.
I Mean, I CAN Picture HIM now ...
# Which one's Pink? #
.. Putting HIS Heart and Soul in to IT,
as if HIS life depended on IT.
# You gotta Get an album out You Owe IT to the People
# We're SO Happy We Hardly CAN count. #
I Mean, the Lyrics ...
If I'd have Written Those Lyrics, I'd Feel well pleased.
# And We did tell you The Name of the game, Boy
# We call the IT Riding gravy train. #
It was Played Millions of times around the World as a single.
That was My vocals on a .. . You know, really ...
a kind of a number one selling single.
Everybody Thought IT was Roger.
I was a bit peed off About That.
if I Think I'd Sung IT, IT Would be More vulnerable
and Cynical less than the way He did IT.
But That's not the way Roy sings.
He Went off and did IT and did a Great job, and thank you very much.
I do not Think Roger liked his version terribly much,
but I Think HIS version is the perfect version.
He was a Singing Sort of parody , anyway ...
.. Which I do not Like. I never liked it.
The Worst of IT is That Sometimes When I'm doing,
you know, When I'm doing a gig ...
.. there's some wag'll shout, "Have A Cigar", you know.
I Regret IT, and That's not
cos I've got anything Against Roy, I have not, you know.
I Think if I'd persevered with IT, Would I have Done Better IT.
# Come in here, dear Boy Have a Cigar
# You're gonna go far
# You're gonna fly High
# You're gonna Never Die You're gonna make IT if you try
# They're gonna Love you. #
I was SO unbelievably thrilled
to be there, and I was just very Young,
I was just About 21.
There is Actually a rather nice Picture of me
That took Nick Mason, and IT Sort of Sums up, Because I just Look
Wide-Eyed and,
you know, thrilled is the Only Word, I Think.
I'd Baked some fairy Cakes,
and I thought it would be a good idea to bring them to the studio.
There's this wonderful Sequence of Roger Proving That He did
Enjoy the cake.
That I Think Nick took These Pictures,
Because I can not imagine That I had the courage to sort of,
you know, Take Them, but Perhaps I did.
Roger is in the driving seat in these pictures,
as far as the Studio's Concerned, and Perhaps Position That is hard.
But , actually, it's probably better
if just one person is in the Driving seat.
Roger, Actually, you know , kept a tight hold on the helm,
and That's What He - That's What He did.
And, you know, you can't gainsay that,
Because the Records, you know, the very Records Were Good.
Dark Side was just a such a sort of thing.
All the Pieces fell into Place,
or as Nick Mason says,
"The drumming did IT."
So I Think That That was quite hard to Deal with.
What do you do next? What do you do to top it?
What do you do to be Different?
Well, I could not draw,
SO Fantasy Pictures Were out.
I could not paint, SO artsy fartsy was out.
I was not a graphic Designer, and Also, I was not Interested
in Band Pictures, Because I found a Them bit dull, you know, a group
of four musicians Who Play Guitar, Bass or Drums and Keyboards
Would seem to me to be four musicians. They could be anybody.
We Always felt Representing the Music That was the order of the Day.
I know, it sounds radical, even revolutionary!
So in order to Represent the Music, one did not really Want to be limited
in the Great palette of Art and life to a Picture of four Geezers.
We'd Mostly, in Those days, left to IT Storm to Come up with
Things Which We Would Give HIM a Desultory two minutes
Our Mixing of time, to Say That one, maybe, That one , not that, not that.
They Were recording at Abbey Road, and I Remember going there,
and I remember I was very ...
I was very Nervous doing in the Presentation.
He Came up with These - this, you know, from the lyrics,
from this Theme of Absence, and IT just Seemed Like a Good very idea.
I Remember Getting a Little Round of applause.
I was gratified Most, I CAN tell you.
Storm, actually, is probably one of the most argumentative people
Could you Ever Meet.
Roger and Storm Would have these intense conversations
over Fine Wines and SO on.
Roger Storm and two Were Great intellects and, you know,
there was Sparks flying in Their Brains, Those two.
I got very pre-Occupied with four, with the number four.
There Were four Words in the title, four members of the Band,
and four Elements to life - air, fire, water and earth.
So the first thing was Done That was a postcard.
The postcard said "Wish You Were Here."
Po found this fantastic Location, Called Mono Lake,
Which is such an amazing location
That you just Could Photograph About a plastic Duck in I
and you'd Like IT.
We Always Thought there was an element of Storm loving to Find
the Most expensive, Distant Location in the World
SO He Could go off and have a jolly Little for a FEW days at Our Expense.
This Guy is doing a Yoga Position
in a Yoga chair locked into the mud,
Poor MAN, with a Breathing apparatus on.
And He HAD to hold HIS Breath SO I did not Get any bubbles.
That's All for Real shot. That's not airbrushed or cut or anything.
That was a moment in time on a Magical Evening,
with amazing Light .
Did That Take a Long time to set up, That shot?
A fucking Long time.
This shot was a Pain in the Arse.
I Came to the Notice of Pink Floyd,
I Thought That I Would do a kind of a diary Visual
of Americana at That time.
So I Drew Everything That I Could Think of at the time,
Like Black Power, Playboy magazine, Mickey Mouse.
Hi, guys.
There was a fantastic Mickey Mouse sequence, where Mickey
Goes from Being the mouse to Sort of Being a Drug crazed mouse.
HE SIGHS
Hey, MAN. That was far out, man.
Mickey's such a clean Living Guy, and there He was ...
. . on drugs.
Thought I was absolutely Brilliant IT, and I just Thought
this, We Could really .. .
It'd be Great to work with someone Who Produced
something Like this.
And I took IT to Roger and Roger and Roger Showed loved IT.
It was very Awkward, Like All relationships at the Beginning,
Because They wanted one thing from me,
and I was not Coming up with the Goods, I felt.
When I Say this to Roger Today, He says, "Oh, I do not Remember That."
I just remember it was an enormous relief
After a Lot of the Visually flailing around
That we'd Done with Dark Side Of The Moon.
I Think the Sandman is a particularly Great Image.
You know, the Fact That We ' re all bits of sand that can blow away,
I Think IT's just an idea I HAD, really.
I wanted to do the impermanence of life or whatever, you know.
It All Sounds rather ... pretentious crap, really.
The Beginning of the Record Sounds very Melancholy,
and is very Melancholy is and Melancholy Music .
Sort of Blues,
IT's a Sort of G Minor Blues Whole That first Six or seven minutes.
We found a Mood Obviously That We wanted to not exactly jam to,
but Play around with and Find something within.
And We Were Never too afraid of leaving quite a Long period
of time before Instrumental Came in vocals.
You See, at the time, IT was a Case of let's See What works.
So then, hence, the Wine glass tape came out.
The Wine glasses Were Recorded an album for
They Were going to make Called Household Objects,
Which We HAD a loop on
and then Rick then built up the sound
with synthesisers and Organ.
They wanted a Big sound, SO was the Guitar Recorded
in a different studio,
SO hence the click Track.
He put HIS Amplifiers and speakers down in Studio one .. .
.. Being a Classical Music Studio, and then mic'd IT from a Distance.
I Think IT comes across on the album.
You Could Picture IT Being Played out somewhere in an Auditorium.
This Will be Rick featured on the end of Shine On,
He really where Came in to HIS element.
You have a Hammond Organ on there, you have grand piano ...
.. plus the Synthesised Other Instruments He Plays.
I CAN 't remember exactly what synthesiser that was,
but this is Richard's ... Trademark.
He's a Great piano player,
and does Highlight, I Think, HIS Classical Training.
And I Think if he'd HAD Another 20 minutes, you would have heard
Probably Like a Rick Wright Concerto.
And at the very end, where He does the tribute to Syd Barrett,
I do not Remember That if Rick was just Thinking of That
at the spur of the moment.
That was a nice ... a nice touching thing.
He was kind of a Crazy Diamond,
and the All Things IT says About HIM
in Brilliant Those lines are very, very Accurate, you know.
"You wore out your welcome with Random Precision" ,
Certainly was a Part of HIM.
# Well, you wore out your welcome With Random Precision
# Rode on the steel Breeze
# Come on, you Raver,
# You SEER of Visions
# Come on, you Painter, Piper you
# You Prisoner, and shine ! #
My Memory is That We Were recording a Radio One Show
at the BBC ...
.. and Syd did not Turn up.
And I Think IT was a Friday.
And no-one Could Find HIM.
So Basically We Waited and Waited, and I Think
We HAD to cancel the recording, or We tried to do some without HIM,
I'm not sure, and then the managers Went off Trying to Find HIM.
And When They found Syd, Which I Think was a Sunday or Monday,
They Told us, "Well, something's happened to Syd. "
And something HAD happened to HIM, Total Difference.
And I Remember HIM Like Being right this, and looking in his eyes,
and IT was just Like ...
HE MAKES CLICKING NOISE
.. HAD Somebody Turned the Lights out, you know,
He just Looked SO blank.
He was a Living with a Whole Sort of Community of People Who Were
very much Believing acid CAN Release you and, you know,
Get to the Truth and All That stuff,
... and He took too much.
And He Went up on stage
and He just Stood there for Long stretches
and he'd play the guitar for a bit and then he'd stop.
He HAD SO much Damage Done, Because acid, That's What IT does to you.
Too much acid literally Will Fry your Brains.
# Nobody Knows where you are
# How near or How far
# Shine on, you Crazy Diamond. #
We Were Unable to help Syd and Probably, I will not deliberately Say,
but HAD Our Own interests at heart, and so consequently
Probably tried to hold on to HIM for far longer than We Should have Done.
Syd left the band in 1,968.
four hundred ninety-six
Only Syd was around for one That Record, IT was a tiny Piece.
It was a very important piece, it was the opening piece
of the Pink Floyd Story, and IT May well be That Pink Floyd
Would Never have Started and Never Would have Carried on
and nothing Would have happened. We will never know.
He was a hindrance to the Real Band in many Ways.
Having That said, We simply wouldn't have got to where we got to.
There Would be no Dark Side Of The Moon if Syd
hadn't Been around to us on Take That first major Step.
I found IT SO upsetting working with Syd in Those days.
It was Like Trying to ... Sort of Seeing someone drowning
and Trying to pull out Them, but They kept on slip ... you know,
the Hand Slipped away All the time.
We Were Hoping That IT Would be Therapeutic for HIM
and help HIM Might Come back.
Trying ... IT was Like Trying to Bring HIM back.
"Come back, Syd, Come back."
And there was likely to be Never any way back, and That is ...
.. quite awful to Think About.
MUSIC GUITAR
# You reached for the Secret too soon
# You Cried for the moon
# Shine on you Crazy Diamond. #
And of Course, They loved Their ooohs,
We just SO oooh'd Them,
Saying, "Shine on, you Crazy Diamond," and just oooh'd
the rest of the way. They loved ooohs.
and Carlena Venetta, Soulful and Being Americans,
was a wonderful Contrast
I did not know Them from a bar of soap,
and I didn't like their music in the beginning.
It was All in a Minor Key, All IT was very Low,
Everything was oohs and ahhs and. Who are these people?
Thought I was Meticulous Motown, but this was the Most Meticulous
four musicians that I had ever seen work before.
And something in me Told My Head, "Venetta,
" you're here for a reason, you must enjoy this music,
"you must Get on with this Music, cos You're here,
They Managed Their job to do without Getting involved in the Band
Politics, SO Those two very Were Good at just ..
You know, We All Might be furious with each Other
Dinner at the table or in the Car on the way to the Show or whatever,
and they'd just be very, very relaxed and just Get on with IT.
And They Always beautifully Sang.
One of My fondest, fondest Memories of Being with Pink Floyd
recording Shine On You Crazy Diamond,
Because That was the Only thing That We Actually got to Record with Them,
as Opposed to Singing-Performing Dark Side Of The Moon.
That was the So Great About IT thing, We Actually got on a Record.
# Shine on, you Crazy diamond. #
Welcome To The Machine.
They just wanted bits of ad-hoc animation bunged into the Show
Willy nilly. And, of Course,
I HAD My Little Team of animators Who are Strictly Trained to work
to a Track, and without a Track, They do not know What to do.
And I Used to go and tell Roger this,
and He said, "It does not Matter About a Track, just let Them do something."
I Assume He made ??All That Heard having spherical stuff
the VCS3 throbbing at the Beginning of Welcome To The Machine.
Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom ... All of That stuff.
HE CLICKS AND WHIRS
When it came to Welcome To The Machine,
I Think Roger was really Getting into HIS synthesisers.
So, hence you have all these different effects.
I Mean, some of These noises are, to me, just futuristic.
I loved that machine.
I Used a Lot IT back in the Day.
I've still got one. It's still good for wind and explosions.
throbbing
See, and the throb
Basically What is Roger Would have Played on Bass.
He adds to IT later on with the Real Bass.
throbbing AND BASS
The Only Real Instruments That are really on there are
Dave's acoustics.
'One, two, Three, four ...'
GUITAR
DRUMS
To Add a bit More to the aggression of the Song,
and the timps Cymbals Were added.
It just sounded very Angry Like a Song to me, Always did.
Very Angry.
Somebody That was something out of Getting Their system.
# Welcome, My Son
# Welcome to the Machine
# Where have you Been?
# It's All We know right where you've been
This Particular Creature I Created,
I Remember Showing IT to the Gang,
Sort of Who Went Along with Everything I said at That Point,
They did not Correct Sort of anything.
Roger, particularly, That Has this idea
if you hire an artist,
you do not try and Change What That artist does,
you hire an artist for What He does.
Gerry Has a very Similar kind of bolshie Attitude ...
Towards All status quo and All the Powers That be That I do.
# So, welcome ...
# To the Machine. #
And the sea of blood that comes towards us
and crashes through the steel towers.
God Knows What's About IT.
But I Thought IT was a very kind of a strong Image, a sea of Blood.
I really did Piece by Piece Add the animation, so when I'd done
the sea of Blood, said Roger Probably We need IT a bit longer.
So then the sea of Blood HAD to Turn into hands, Praying,
grasping hands,
kind of lost Hopeless hands, I suppose,
Searching for some god or some reason to IT All.
You Could Say That To Welcome The Machine
is Only About My Experience in the Music Industry ...
It's not, IT's About All of Our experience
in the Face of That monstrous,
That thing Grinding Chews us up and spits us out.
In the Meetings That Storm and I HAD, one of the Topics
Somebody was Getting Burnt in the Business, you know,
Which was an Expression at the time. "Man, I've Been Burned."
You know, SO, what more logical, kind of, concept, if you like,
Would be than two Men shaking hands and is one of Them Getting Burnt?
And both We Went, "Yeah!" Maybe Because IT was SO outrageous.
And These are the days before computers,
SO IT Meant Setting a MAN on Fire, Which We did.
Yeah, IT was not very Difficult. Issuing Orders from the Bunker,
IT's really Easy. "Over the top, Men."
Anyway, Done That was for Real in a Studio lot in Hollywood.
What Could be More than absent a Studio Lot?
I believe IT was a Warner Brothers Lot .
I was doing a Lot
of Fire work in Those days,
and I HAD the Special Suits
All this stuff and
for full Envelop Fire, but a partial is basically,
you know, a safe Pretty, Pretty Easy one to do.
And ... In most cases.
He HAD ... a Team of 20 people around him with fire extinguishers,
Ready to Deal with any emergency.
MAN The Effects Will Step out
and He's got a wand About That Long with a Fire on the end of it,
They and go, "We're Ready, Action, and He just touches the Three
or four spots Like That, steps out, Everything is burning,
and IT's still a Picture, SO ... Shake shaking hands -
nothing to IT.
And After I HAD About shot, I suppose, 15 shots,
and 15 times for somebody to catch fire is rather a lot,
Suddenly a Gust of Breeze Came up.
And the fire whipped round his face.
There's a Funny thing About Fire - When IT Gets in your Face
you 're going to move, that's just part of the thing.
And once IT IT blew around, I Turned as fast as I Could.
He fell to the Ground, absolutely Smothered with foam
and Blankets and Everything Like That. He got up and he said,
"That's IT, no More."
Luckily, I got in the IT can.
And here We See HIS Foot leaving frame.
And That's a Sort of surreal Image of Absence in Itself , you know?
But That's Real Absence.
Out of frame, out of sight, you know?
And you just kept shooting?
I just kept shooting, yeah.
I Mean, I HAD to Get this shot and IT HAD to be right.
So, you know, I did not have time to be Concerned with HIS Singed body.
You know, if They Want Somebody burning and they're going to Pay me,
I Don ' t care if they have an artist drawing the fire.
When Developing a Theme of Absence,
IT Seemed therefore Appropriate that in the end,
Should the cover be absent.
The ... UM ... Got it here.
The ... UM ...
This is the end Piece, or the end Part of the puzzle.
Anyway, the Record Company, Especially in America,
Went Complete apeshit.
"You Mean wrap Wish You Were Here in Black Opaque Shrink wrap
"you can not See SO IT? Are you completely fucking mad? "
But you HAD to have a Sticker That said What IT was,
otherwise the factory wouldn't pack it properly,
let alone the Fans Buy IT.
I Hear Stories That there are some aficionados ...
.. Who have ... Who have HAD HAD Wish You Were Here for many a Year now,
and have Carefully slit the Opaque Vinyl Shrink wrap
and the Extracted Record
and have not Actually Seen the cover in 35 years.
Brilliant. That's really absent.
Well, That's the one I CAN quite Clearly Remember .
That was me strumming a 12 string guitar,
Which I'd recently Purchased from a Guy I know,
Coming up with and, you know, the opening riff
of Wish You Were Here.
And again, Like ...
Like the four Notes at the Beginning of Shine On You Crazy Diamond,
Other People start going, "Hey,
"That's Good, you've got something there."
And I said to HIM, "What's That You're Playing? That's really nice."
And He Played IT.
And I said, "That's really Good.
"Maybe I Should try and do something with IT."
Those Chords and Putting in to the ... in to the Whole thing, and Roger ...
did .. Those Brilliant Words, and there We Were.
# Did They Get you to Trade your heroes for ghosts
# Hot ashes for trees
# Hot Air for a cool Breeze
# Cold comfort for Change
# And did you exchange
# A Walk on part in the war
# For a lead role in a cage? #
That collaboration Between David and I, I think is, you know,
really Good. All bits of IT are really, really Good.
So I ' m very happy about it.
# So, you Think SO CAN tell you
Heaven from hell #
# Blue Skies from Pain
# Can you tell a green Field
# From a Cold, steel rail?
# A smile from a Veil?
# Do you Think you CAN tell? #
I Think Most of the Songs That I've Ever Written
All Pose Similar questions.
Can you Free Yourself Enough to be Able to Experience the Reality
of life as IT Goes on before you
and with you, and as you go on as Part of IT or not?
Because if you can not, you Stand on square one until you die.
And I know That May sound Like Bullshit,
That's What but the Song is About .
# How I wish How I wish you Were here
# We're just two lost Souls Swimming in a fish bowl
Year After Year #
# Running over the Ground Same old
# What We have found?
# The Same old fears
# Wish you Were here. #
All the Songs are Encouraging me,
I guess I write Them for me,
and IT's to Encourage Myself ...
.. not to accept a lead role in a cage ...
.. but to go on demanding of Myself
That I Keep auditioning
for the walk on part in the war, because that's where I want to be.
I Want to be in the trenches.
I do not Want to be at headquarters or I do not Want to be sitting
in a Hotel somewhere.
I Want to be ... I Want to be Engaged ...
.. Probably, I Might Say,
in a way That My father Would Approve of.
It's a very simple Sort of Country Song, if you Like.
It's still ... Because of resonance ITS
and the emotional IT Carries Weight,
IT is one of our best songs.
People do attach to IT Internal Lots of feelings That They May have,
and they may not be entirely sure what it's about, and neither am I.
I Mean, I'm Only telling you What's About IT for me.
But there's no reason why Other People should not put
Other Interpretations on IT, Which Could be just as Valid.
Although Shine On You Crazy Diamond
is the one That is specifically About Syd, and Wish You Were Here
.. I can not Sing IT without Thinking About Syd.
My Memory is That I Came in to the Studio
and there was this Guy Standing there in a Gabardine raincoat,
and a large, large bloke, and I HAD no idea Who was IT.
And Surprisingly, no-one's Saying, "Who's That person?
"What's He doing Wandering around All Our gear in the Studio?"
And then ... then Coming in to HIM the control room and standing around,
and How Remarkable, How Long IT was before anyone woke up Actually.
Finally , I think it was David who said, "Nick, do you recognise him?"
And I Looked and I Think I shrugged Either My Shoulders
and said, "It's Syd".
And We just Sort of Stood there,
or SAT Were there and just Shell-shocked, Basically.
And then until Somebody Thought of something to Say to HIM.
And then We Were All unbelievably shocked at HIS appearance.
I Mean, I did not Recognise HIM, I did not know IT was HIM.
But IT was Pretty ...
.. Pretty Affecting, really.
I Mean, Roger and Dave Cried.
You know, this slim, elegant ...
.. if bedraggled and Dazed That person I HAD Last Seen, HAD Turned
rather Balloon shaped, and HAD no eyebrows and not much Hair, and ...
And there is the Photograph of HIM in the Studio at the time,
and if you Looked at Syd in Early '67
and then Syd, SO IT was Different.
It was a Great Loss and, you know ...
.. Imagining What He Would have gone on to do is. ..
That Speculating on, if you Like, is ...
He Could have SO Become Great.
It's kind of nice Actually Standing up here with These Three guys
After All These years.
Standing to be counted with the rest of you.
Anyway, we're doing this for everyone Who's not here,
but particularly, of Course, for Syd.
HE intones