Dear Friends,
What a nice day at work yesterday. Even though it feels weird right now with my team, and I own a lot of that, it was a good day. It was one of those days when I connected with my students, and they seemed happy and safe.
That’s the best thing ever.
*****
The show last night was a lot of fun. It is kind of a blur because once Hillbilly started setting up, I was pretty darn busy for the next two hours straight or more. One thing that was totally rad was seeing so many wonderful faces.
I’ll process more when I get a bit of sleep. I have some things to say, but Bright Sunshine killed it. Jerk Officers were super fun, too. I wish more people had been there for them. I wish I could have heard more of Sick in the Head, but what I did hear, they were killing it, too.
I’m a lucky guy to have so many friends who are willing to come out on a Friday night! Thank you.
*****
When I made my first list of records I wanted to write about this year, it was about 150 records long. I know that isn’t bad considering a lot of that was off the top of my head. One of the records that was on the list from the start was Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd.
It’s stayed on the list all this time, but I doubted it. I don’t think I have actually sat and listened to this record on purpose since the 80s. I kept looking at it and thinking, “that’s kind of a bullshit pick. I don’t really listen to it anymore.”
But I decided to give it a spin and it all came back to me.
I have been in denial of my love for Pink Floyd for a long time. I think it might be due to the later stuff not being so good and the sniping in the press between Roger Waters and David Gilmour. It might even be that I grew out of my Pink Floyd phase.
Whatever it is, after at least 25 years, if not 30, I have listened to Wish You Were Here several times through in the past week or so and goddam if it isn’t a great record.
I’m a big Syd Barrett fan, so I’ve always been kind of touched by all the parts of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.” I was six when this really came out, but once I got hip to the folklore, this song suite of song parts really got to me. I’m a sentimental idiot, I suppose.
It makes me feel good about the guys paying tribute to their old mate.
I’m also a big fan of “Welcome to the Machine.” All the bells and whistles in Floyd’s music just mean so much more to me than they did back then. As a teenager, I was all about the angst of the band. They were angry and sullen and had something to say in the way that my punk bands did, so I tended to focus on the words more than the music in those days.
Now, though, I listen to what the band was doing behind Roger Waters’ vocals and I’m stunned by it. There is so much going on. Gilmour’s guitar stuff in “Have a Cigar” is fucking great, for example. He’s got some sounds going that are just jaw dropping. I don’t even want to try and figure out what he was doing because it was almost fifty years ago and whatever it was, he was killing it.
This record has so much cool stuff from Richard Wright, too. I have to believe that people who are really into the keys and synths love this record. I don’t know much about those instruments/gadgets, but I know that whatever Wright was doing on Wish You Were Here was spectacular.
I never knew, though, in my youth that the vocals on “Have a Cigar” were not one of the Floyd guys. A dude named Roy Harper, who I had to look up, sang the song. He’s got 22 albums out. I might have to give one a listen.
“Wish You Were Here” has always been one of my favorite Floyd songs and I am reminded why that is after diving into the record this week. The way the guitar comes in, sounding like it is on some radio far away, gets me every time. These guys really knew how to pull on the ol’ heart strings (and pluck a guitar string, too).
“So…so you think you can tell?”
Those first words just work on so many levels. I’ve also been haunted for years by the line about trading your “heroes for ghosts.” I’m sure, in some ways, this song is a foreshadow of what was to come in The Wall. It feels like it could have easily been on that record.
The second half of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” is stellar, too. “You miner of truth and delusion…” I was certainly one of those in high school when I got turned on to this record. I was looking for my truth and hiding in the delusion. Wish You Were Here was my companion for some tough times, but…
I’m so glad it exists. There was a reason it went on the list.
*****
See you tomorrow.
The bass player is sleepy, AI.
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