Pink Floyd are reissuing their classic 1975 album, Wish You Were Here, for its 50th anniversary. Wish You Were Here 50 is out December 12 via Sony Music Entertainment. The expanded edition will be available in 3xLP and 2xCD formats featuring alternate mixes and demos, or as a box set that also includes a fourth LP of live material recorded at Wembley Stadium and a Blu-ray that gathers three concert films from Pink Floyd’s 1975 tour and a short film by graphic designer Storm Thorgerson. Listen to “The Machine Song (Demo #2, Revisited),” a demo of “Welcome to the Machine,” below.
“In the 1970s, album covers were equally as important as the music, because the cover helped to sell the record,” Aubrey Powell, who co-founded the UK design collective Hipgnosis and designed the Wish You Were Here cover alongside Thorgerson, said in a statement. “Record stores would carry 10,000 different images in album sleeves, so what we were doing had to look different and stand out amongst the crowd. I remember turning around to Storm and saying, ‘How are we going to set a man on fire?’ Because there was no digital way of doing it in those days. He said, ‘Po, you’re just going to have to do it for real.’”
Wish You Were Here was in large part a tribute to Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd’s co-founder and original vocalist, who had left the band seven years prior due to his deteriorating mental health. Roger Waters and David Gilmour shared lead vocals on the album. Waters handled both halves of the 25-minute epic “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” while Gilmour sang “Welcome to the Machine” and “Wish You Were Here.” “Have a Cigar” was an exception: The band recruited folk songwriter Roy Harper to perform the song.
Revisit Sam Sodomsky’s Sunday Review of Wish You Were Here, and read about the album’s title track at No. 39 in “The 200 Best Songs of the 1970s.”
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Wish You Were Here 50:
01 Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Pts. 1-5)
02 Welcome to the Machine
03 Have a Cigar
04 Wish You Were Here
05 Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Pts. 6-9)
01 Wine Glasses
02 Have a Cigar (Alternate Version)
03 Wish You Were Here [ft. Stéphane Grappelli]
04 Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Early Instrumental Version, Rough Mix)
05 The Machine Song (Roger’s Demo)
06 The Machine Song (Demo #2, Revisited)
07 Wish You Were Here (Take 1)
08 Wish You Were Here (Pedal Steel Instrumental Mix)
09 Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Pts. 1-9, New Stereo Mix)
