Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd Song) - Composition

Composition

In the original album version, the song segues from "Have a Cigar" as if a radio had been tuned away from one station, through several others (including a radio play and one playing Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony), and finally to a new station where "Wish You Were Here" is beginning. The radio was recorded from Gilmour's car radio. He performed the intro on a twelve-string guitar, processed to sound like it was playing through a car AM radio, and then overdubbed a fuller sounding acoustic guitar solo. This passage was mixed to sound as though the guitarist was sitting in a car, listening to the radio; it also contains a whine that slowly changes pitch—emulating the electro-magenetic interference from the engine of a car as it accelerates and decelerates.

The intro riff is repeated several times and reprised when Gilmour plays further solos with scat singing accompaniment. At the end of the recorded song, the final solo crossfades with wind sound effects (reminiscent of "One of These Days" from the 1971 album Meddle), and finally segues into the second section of the multi-part suite "Shine On You Crazy Diamond".

The song borrows the imagery of a "steel rail" from Syd Barrett's solo song, "If It's In You", from The Madcap Laughs album.