As Pink Floyd readies a lavish 50th-anniversary Wish You Were Here reissue, guitarist David Gilmour spoke to NPR’s All Songs Considered about the pressure of following up on the unparalleled success of its predecessor, The Dark Side of the Moon.
“There were a number of thoughts about those sorts of issues, about what we were trying to do and how and why,” Gilmour told host Robin Hilton about going back into the studio after The Dark Side of the Moon. “You know, you think you’ve done everything at that point, you’re not sure what you’re doing it for, you know? Are you doing this for more fame? Do you want more money when you’ve done rather well at that moment?
“All of those things that you dream of when you were a teenager in your first full band were realized by that album,” he continued. “And you have to then think, ‘Do I really love music or is it the fame that I really love, or is it the money that I’m after, or is it the other benefits that come with it?’ I think I got to the conclusion that I really was there for the music more than anything else.”
The result, 1975’s Wish You Were Here, confronted the monumental expectations of following up on one of the best-selling albums of all time by addressing them head-on. Pink Floyd skewered the cold-hearted music industry at nearly every turn, from Strom Thurgen‘s iconic album cover of two businessmen casually shaking hands while one was on fire (an actual person really on fire, in the pre-CGI days) to bassist Roger Waters‘ kiss-off to the entertainment business “Welcome to the Machine” to the iconic line from “Have a Cigar”, “Oh by the way, which one’s Pink?”
“We were in a very strange place,” Gilmour said of recording Wish You Were Here. “You know, the ‘difficult second album’ thing springs to mind. It wasn’t a second album or anything, but it was the second album after having the knock-your-socks-off, fulfill-all-your-dreams sort of album, right? The Dark Side of the Moon.
“And there was a lot of lethargy in the studio, a lot of sitting around trying to get ourselves up into getting back to work properly,” he continued. “And it took quite a long time. That is part of what the title of the album and that song is about — Roger [Waters’] view that some of us weren’t really there a lot of the time.”
Gilmour also recalled working on Wish You Were Here at London’s Abbey Road Studios. Strumming the iconic intro of the album’s title track on his 12-string guitar, Gilmour said he observed “the little clues or signals that people put off when they think, ‘Hey, we might be on to something here.’ And those are always good signs.” As for the trademark radio opening to the track, they just walked outside Abbey Road with a microphone to David’s car.
“And I just sat there with the thing on and with a microphone recording the radio,” he said. “And, you know, in the old days, you didn’t press a button to get a new channel. You actually tuned from one to the other. So you’d turn clockwise or anti-clockwise and come across these strange mad sort of sounds. That is all a live moment that just happened while I sat in my car. All of that background radio noise.”
Additionally, Gilmour discussed his famously understated style of guitar playing, which breaks from the norm of fast or flashy solos set by the other greats of his generation.
“I don’t pre-think things very often,” he remarked. “I’m not trying to work out what would be new and exciting or different. I’m just hunting for an emotion, in the moment. You know, I’m not that fast on the guitar, but I don’t want to be [doing that] even if I could. It is what I love, which is what I’ve spent my whole life doing. I started out playing music in bands when I was 16 or 17, and I’ve never stopped. And the writing thing gradually came on, me creating my own pieces of music, until I realized, you know, ‘I’ve got a knack for a nice tune once in a while. What else can I do?’ I just follow where I’m led.”
Check out the full David Gilmour interview about Wish You Were Here, The Dark Side of the Moon, his solo album Luck and Strange, and more on NPR. The 50th anniversary Wish You Were Here reissue, featuring unreleased studio demos and several live bootleg concerts, is available on December 12th in various formats. Learn more here.
Pink Floyd — “Wish You Were Here” — Earls Court — London, UK — 10/20/94
[Video: Pink Floyd]