Wish You Were Here

It can be really confusing to read about these middle albums, everyone talking from their own perspective of having lived it as though each album is a separate thing, a project they sat down and hashed out. We, however, are watching them live it, and it's a completely different thing. Waters' Pink Floyd is tangible because we can see him take control, get angry at everyone else for making it harder to create, and finally explode. The other three think they're still just a band, but Roger is writing about his real life internal existential crisis. We're talking about an 11 year chunk of time where they have enough money to not care about having to make money. Roger's goal wasn't to become a millionaire and get drunk by the pool every day, but it also wasn't to grind and vacation, grind and stare at hotel walls for 6 months, watch label execs cash in on his hard work and say things like "gravy train" and "fame and fortune." He wanted to be happy again, and he wasn't getting what he wanted.

Anywho, Wish You Were Here is the actual dark side of the moon. If Bowie was saying party over here, i'll be over there (thanks, Aesop Rock), Roger was screaming "why am i at this party? Let me go home!"

Nick Mason's marriage was falling apart, so he was quite the party pooper, Gilmour was Syd's replacement, so you can completely understand his mindset being "you're idea is really great, let's just make sure the music does it justice this time," and Richard was just glad he didn't have to work as hard to come up with ideas (he didn't like his own ideas).

Music's awesome though. They deserve all their success in that regard. Gilmour can whine about Shine On being split up by the other 3 songs all he wants, at the end of the day it's an unquestionable masterpiece.

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