Wish You Were Here
by Pink Floyd
- 122
- BPM
- G major
- Key
- 9B
- Camelot
- 49
- Danceability
- 74
- Acousticness
David Gilmour came up with the first riff for "Wish You Were Here", and he and Roger Waters worked out the music together, with Gilmour singing lead. Waters mainly wrote the lyrics. The song was the title track of Pink Floyd's 1975 album and was recorded at Abbey Road Studios as part of the sessions for the whole record.
On the album it follows "Have a Cigar" as if someone were turning a radio dial through several stations, one of them playing the finale of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony. The radio was recorded from Gilmour's car. He played the intro on a twelve-string guitar, processed to sound like it was coming through an AM radio, then overdubbed a fuller acoustic guitar solo. At the end, the solo moves into light, high scat singing that crossfades into wind sound effects.
Gilmour had suggested a little "country fiddle" for the ending. The jazz violinist Stéphane Grappelli was recording in a downstairs studio at Abbey Road with Yehudi Menuhin, and Gilmour invited both. Grappelli agreed for a session fee of £300. Menuhin declined. In the mix, Grappelli's part was almost removed. Many hear the lyrics as a tribute to Syd Barrett. Waters described them as directed at himself, while Gilmour said he never performs the song without thinking of Barrett.
Wish You Were Here runs at 122 BPM, the tempo of house, disco and most club dance music. In classical terms it sits in allegro territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 1.97 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 492 ms. It is in G major, Camelot 9B, which shares its notes with E minor and mixes cleanly with C major and D major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.