David Gilmour: Wish You Were Here

This weekend, I got out my 12-string guitar for the first time in about two years. It was remarkably close to concert pitch. Using it in church this Sunday, I warmed up with a number of tunes and one was this Pink Floyd classic – the title cut from the “Wish You Were Here” LP. It was the second single from the LP with “Have a Cigar” being the first. Neither charted in the Hot 100; however, the album did make it to #1.

I bought the “Wish You Were Here” album shortly after it was released and was excited by the fact that a new Floyd LP was available two years after “Dark Side of the Moon.” Unfortunately, my copy skipped and I took it back to the store. Being that I lived in a small town of 3,000 that had no chain record stores, they had no further copies – so I traded it in on something else. I believe I substituted the second self-titled Fleetwood Mac album, which was a good choice.

Sadly, I never replaced this album; but, it was getting a good bit of airplay on WAMX in Ashland, KY when they were doing album rock in the evenings. So I heard it enough to be very familiar with this song. “Wish You Were Here” was another song about Syd Barrett, the former lead guitarist of Pink Floyd. Both David Gilmour and Roger Waters contributed to its composition and Gilmour sang lead in addition to playing all the guitar parts.

Here’s an unplugged version of the tune by Gilmour. He is joined on stage by Richard Wright of Pink Floyd on keyboards. This is an excellent rendition and the ‘cello really makes this tune. “We’re just two lost souls living in a fish bowl year after year - wish you were here.”