Pink Floyd In The Studio For 'Wish You Were Here' 50th Anniversary

09-01-2025

The 50th anniversary of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" album is being celebrated by the syndicated radio show In The Studio With Redbeard: The Stories Behind History's Greatest Rock Bands.

Redbeard shared this synopsis for the episode: It didn't take long for progressive rock masterpiece Dark Side of the Moon's worldwide success to affect the individual members and the band collective in Pink Floyd, and their follow-up in September 1975, Wish You Were Here, reflected a fond farewell to both long-gone Pink Floyd co-founder Syd Barrett as well as their innocence.

"YOU try following up Dark Side of the Moon. Go on, just try it!" playfully admonishes Pink Floyd guitarist/singer David Gilmour. "We've been trying to do it ever since," laughs drummer Nick Mason. Yet not only is that follow up album Wish You Were Here fifty years ago their confessed favorite of all that they did, this postcard from the edge of Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett's madness holds up exceedingly well because of classics "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", "Have a Cigar", "Welcome to the Machine", and the title ode.

There's a common misconception that the fracturing of Pink Floyd occurred at some time after their worldwide blockbuster The Wall album and movie. However, this week's classic rock interview with Waters, Gilmour, Mason, and the late Richard "Rick" Wright clearly reveals that Waters has a completely different recollection than the other three of the 1975 recording sessions for Wish You Were Here, with Waters declaring to me pithily, "That album should have been called 'Wish WE Were Here', because we weren't, really. Already the rot had set in..."

Regardless of the conflicting perceptions by the participants, Rolling Stone magazine ranks Wish You Were Here at #211 on their Top 500 Albums of All Time, with readers to Britain's Q magazine voting it much higher at#34 all time. Even prior to the reissue and box set in 2011, Pink Floyd's ninth album had sold in excess of 13,000,000 copies. David Gilmour and Nick Mason are my guests, Roger Waters makes a cameo, and we include archive comments from the late keyboard player Richard Wright to round out the definitive classic rock interview regarding Wish You Were Here on its golden anniversary.

Stream the episode here