Understanding "Wish You Were Here" 

This song had gotten me through tough times from loss of my Uncle to the loss of my first love. I have always said this song is like a “cold hug” where it doesn’t cheer u up or bring u down, it’s just their for you, filling the void of your pain.

This song is timeless. And it feels painful yet soothing to hear.

Im not even the biggest Floyd fan. But this is possibly the greatest song ever written. First time I heard it, was in a room full of friends. Tim started playing it on guitar and everyone joined in. They were singing for our friend who had recently killed himself. This song will never not be about that friend to me.

Love the design language of polyphonic. It’s streets ahead of most of the rest of RU-vid and deserves far wider exposure. Thank you.

The latter part of the first verse, starting with "Did they get you trade ..." always hits me hard, with a a quiet contempt and hurt/sorrow because of those I felt had misled me, or lies I may have told myself. And then that gets meshed with the full-on loneliness and grief of the chorus. Some of the most effective lyrics ever written.

“So you think you would trade a walk on part in a war for a lead role in a cage?” “We’re just two lost two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl year after year” two of my favourite lyrics all from one song

My older brother passed away nearly a year ago from brain cancer and always loved this song; needless to say this song has been played a lot this past year while I try and heal 💔

Still one of my favorite songs to this day, it really does make me wish someone or something was here with me 💚

My brother died a month ago plus a day. He really loved Pink Floyd, so this song has felt like a send off to him for me. I wish he was here man. Wont be the same without him.

Very well done! One of my favorite bands and tracks. I saw Pink Floyd twice. Animals tour and The Wall. Phenomenal shows!!

I feel that people have a tendency to miss the point of this song so I'm glad that you emphasized the fact that Roger is talking as much about his loss of himself as the loss of Syd.

My dad introduced me to the world of Pink Floyd. He always put on Pink Floyd on sunday mornings to wake us up, and we dont mind because, we're grown to like it. He loved this record exclusively and we usually bond over this record particularly. I even played the guitar solo intro in Wish you were here for him, haha. In 2020, he passed away to Liver cancer. This song, stuck with me. I always listen to it when driving back from work, in a way, it kinda feels like he's still beside me, listening to Pink Floyd together on sunday mornings.

Maybe make something on The Police one day ? One of my favorite trios of all time

This is one of those few songs that never fails to make me cry. Seeing this song live was like a gut punch, so damn beautiful.

This is genuinely one of my favorite series you’ve done, been hoping you’d do this for years

around this time last year i lost my dad in an unexpected accident. pink floyd was something that him and i were able to connect with. after he passed i broke down completely, one of the few things that helped me get through was this song. i feel such a deep connection with this band and with syd and when i listen to this song along with other floyd records i am able to hear my dad’s voice and look back on our memories together.

There's something about Waters' lyrics. On paper they are very basic and straightforward. They should be cheesy. However, maybe it's because they are sung in a believable way, I always feel like they are honest and close to my heart

I came back to this song in every moment of pain and emptiness that I’ve been through, so many meanings, but the same kind of feeling. Timeless.

WYWH is their best album. Other opinions are quaint but wrong.

WISH YOU WERE HERE IS PINK FLOYD'S BEST ALBUM

Genuinely my favorite song of all time, made me feel emotions I didn’t know existed

This has, and probably always will be, my favourite song. I always felt that the song was left deliberately unfinished, like there was something more to say that never got said (much like Syd's life). The fadeout really brings that theme home for me.

It was a love song for me for years. Oddly grieving for that. Awesome work Polyphonic

I don't think I'm emotionally ready for the end of this series...

Thanks a lot for this Wish You Were Here series. It gave me a much deeper understand of the album and a new more emotional way of listening to it.

Wish you were here is the greatest album of ALL TIME.

Over the last week I've watched all of your Echoes and DSOTM videos. Really made me fall deep into the Floyd all over again. And this was the first song I learned on my guitar that I played well enough for my Dad to recognize. Thanks for this my dude!

love your stuff on pink floyd

For years I thought thought the lyrics went "Did you exchange A walk-on part in The Wall For a lead role in a cage" Then one day I realized WYWH pre-dated The Wall by about 5 years.

One of my favorite songs!

Dude more pink Floyd I love these and I love this channel ❤️

This tune has evoked nostalgia in me ever since I first heard it on the radio when I was 12 years old

me and my mom danced to wish you were here at my sweet 16 it was one of my dads favorite songs i wouldn’t stop crying i really did wish he was there

This song makes my heart so heavy and chokes me up, people that are dead and gone or just faded from our lives. We all have someone we think of when we hear this beautiful song.

I know Gilmour is generally regarded as the better vocalist, but I had always wondered what WYWH would sound like if Roger sang it. I would finally find out on his “In the Flesh” album and it instantly became my favorite version of the song. Having seen him live five times, WYWH is undoubtedly the highlight of his show. It’s that moment when, for a few minutes, a rock show feels more like church.

Easily one of the best songs ever written.

Still one on the most beautiful and haunting songs ever written.

Another fantastic episode, with amazing graphics and insightful commentary. I love all the points being made and the way the narrator uses his research to bring the music even more to life. Just one thing - the wind at the end: it always makes me feel very lost and vulnerable, like I've been abandoned by the comforting sound of the music and I'm all alone in some inhospitable place. And when the music starts up again, with those terse bass notes, that unearthly guitar which sounds like something awful flying overhead, and those jarring synthesiser riffs, that horrible feeling is added to - the windy place has gone from being worrying to being actively threatening. So I feel the 'wind' bit at the end a bit differently from you.

I still can't listen to this song without getting chills, and your video captures the feeling of the song so well. Bravo.

i'm not a english native speaker , so the simple lyrics , don't tell me much. your video makes me understand the real meaning. thanks.😌

After working in corporate America for decades, I can say this song represents my feelings about that experience quite well. It meant a lot to me during some of my tougher moments in the workforce.

Every couple years, I go through the entire Pink Floyd catalogue, and watch documentaries about the band starting from their Cambridge childhoods, through the pre-Floyd years, the Barrett years, the early Gilmour years, and through to The Wall, then top it off with the couple charity shows where they reunited briefly. Good timing on the video! One thing: the 'steel rail' is from Barrett's solo song "If It's In You", which is an odd, tortured song even for Syd.

WISH YOU WERE HERE - PINK FLOYD. Back in 1978, ECU, Greenville NC! My English class 401/Speech/Last exam was a vocal! I had 2 weeks to make/prepare a perfect on a vocal exam or a written. I looked at many hundreds of ideas: Back in 1978? There were only the local libery of books or the music story? I hate to make a long story short - But I will right now. I worked for 2 weeks to find any idea to work for my English final. I was the best in my class so far, but I wanted a TOP! I had looked at many books to find an idea? But what I needed was - ME! Something outside of my comfort zoon. If I found that 'limit' : no one would believe it! I sat at in my room crying. The window fan loud, the people in the hallway loud! I am not ready here! Then Pink Floyd, I could hear sorrow, I think? I wrote down a story of such loneliness - it was Pink Floyd. Wish you were here. I started out: ... you know the song... Half way into the song I said: So I wish you were HERE! This was 10 in the morning on 2nd class. The professor started to cry! As well as me, because it broke my heart. Those words in Pink Floyd song still make me cry. My professor ended my 3 credit class with a 4+. I like helping anyone.

Fine example when a tune and words resonate with creators and performers, resulting a genuine feeling that listeners can identify with and share similar sentiments.

This song hits me on ao many levels. The hardest though, losing loved ones to a murderer. It's always been the hardest song for me to get through. Anyway, impressive job with all you do. I'm very thankful for the Pink Floyd videos. Have a peaceful evening.

Damn, Polyphonic! Beautifully told! This song kills me every time I hear it.

In the documentary David Gilmour said: "Although Shine On You Crazy Diamond is specifically about Syd, and Wish You Were Here has a broader remit." I don't think this song is specifically about Syd.

We create our own meanings for the songs we like. My father comes to my mind when I listen to this one. I lost him when I was 12. So many things I wish I could talk about with him, so many things to show. Inluding Pink Floyd. Including Polyphonic.

The Line in the song "And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage" hit me so hard as a teen and it has always stayed with me. I've made life changing decisions with that Lyric in mind and I'm 100% sure that I lived a more interesting, challenging and engaged life thanks to this song. Pink Floyd are one of the greatest.

Having binged them all, I gotta say Polyphonic you keep hitting them out of the park. Fantastic. And I'm not saying that just cause it's one of the best songs that one of the best bands has ever done.

This song hits different when u have lost a loved one 😢

Waters wrote the song but I'll be damned if that's him singing. David sings it doesn't he?

This song has always haunted me in a good reflective way. I know the masks I wear daily out in public, out with friends, even in my relationships. This tendency to cover up or hide emotions, traits, feelings all to protect......what really? The ego? The insecurities? A false perception of myself? All of these, yet I still do it, unable to not do it. And the thing is, everyone does it, and probably can’t control it as well. So the lyrical passages of contrast have always spoken to me. Can you know a person your entire life and not know them? Can you live your life and not know yourself. Can you tell? I like your analysis of being present in the moment. It’s been a struggle my entire life. Either dreaming of a future, planning an event, anything really to keep my mind occupied, then relapsing into regrets over actions either taken or not taken. But Presence is truly all we have at each second. I do wish I was in this state of mind more often, here in the moment. Such a Magnum Opus of psychological awareness this song is. IMHO, this is a time capsule song to be sent into space, lol. I’m more of a Gilmour fan than Waters, but damn, Waters nailed this lyrically

I disagree with your analysis. It’s got nothing to do with the other band members and their interactions. The song is about people who see the world in completely different ways. He’s asking people is they are still questioning authors or accepting the insane world as normal.

“Wish you were here” speaks so much to my own struggles and pain…People who hurt me deeply, yet were people I loved, cared about, lost, and whom I still miss. The isolation and loneliness while wishing they were here. The pain and grief of losing my mother, who was always there for me, yet has blown away to dust. It’s a song anyone who’s lost someone can relate to

I believe he is contacting his inner child. When your parents take your childhood away and you become what THEY want not who you are. You remain a small child ...never speaking up never acting out......never being who you are. The narcissist parent snatched your soul ... The song is calming to those who understand ❤️

Like many of Pink Floyd's best "songs", I can't listen to them outside the context of the album. If I want to listen to Wish You Were Here the song, I listen to Wish You Were Here the album. I don't even think of these things as songs. Pink Floyd made albums with suites on them, not really songs in the traditional sense. Anyway, it's in the context of the album where it has the most impact, and that fade at the end into Shine On pts. 6-9... perfection.

The song might be the minimum on the album but it speaks so much for the band and everything that was covered prior

They both are incredible song writers. To me this song represents a profound loss to anyone who loved someone that killed themselves.The Sparkle Horse video of this song is happy and damning at the same time. Uncomfortable truths about the state of humanity , history and overall pollution of our planet will never be of any concern to most humans. I have always wondered if they consider what their childrens lives will be like . No doubt garbage collection will go through the roof as landfill gets harder and harder to accommodate the " Convenience" mentality.. . . And yes "Wish you were here " is a song about reality and dillusion, loss and saddness. Love it.

Such a beautiful song, no matter how many times it's heard, it still hits you in those feels💚☘🤌

it is this fish bowl that always gets me

Wish Water’s wasn’t sure a prick, politically and interpersonally now, it’s terrible…

This song reminds me of all the friends I lost to suicide or addiction over the years and how I wish I could have eased their pain.

First. Great series. More of these please

i love when people explain music to me like im incapable ov independant thought... maybe you missed the point ov the song :) and now a word from our sponcers...

Are Pink Floyd at war? Seems to me the war is just another cage and no matter what it's a cage, but we choose the cage we run around. Running over the same old ground is analogous to warfare. And Syd is one of those comrades one meet.

Its an amazing album. I think it got overshadowed by the other albums.

Probably one of the songs I never skip or get tired of.

This series is incredible...

Also ending on the wind is a good contrast to starting on AM radio sounds, since AM radio travels over the “airwaves” to almost everywhere (especially at night due to ionospheric diffraction (it bends the radio waves so that they return to the ground much farther away than the signal usually does, sometimes thousands of miles away), just like the wind.

Now do Aphrodite's Child - The Four Horsemen

This has always been my favorite song by Pink Floyd even when I first heard it as a kid. The instrumentation spoke to me in a very special way. And then as I grew up and lost friends and family and lost myself I would go back to this song. It's melancholy feel reminded me that I wasn't alone in my pain. I'm in a much better place now, but when I listen to the song now it helps remind me to enjoy what I have now because everything can change instantly.

love that u didnt interrupt the "chorus"

I am really looking forward to a video on The Wall someday.

Oh! Now I get it. He wishes he was HERE!

This is the one video I was hoping you would play the music. I needed this so bad today like you wouldn't believe so thank you.

i think the guitar solos are the two of them talking back and forth. they’re almost in different places in the music and they’re trying to find each other. im a musician and sometimes i feel like my instrument is wordlessly talking.

amazing art

Wish you were here barrett . Rest in Peace.

You have a podcast? No way, me too!

I always think of the line "would you trade a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage" with Milton's "Paradise Lost" in the voice of Satan, he says "I would rather reign in hell than serve in heaven" and Julius Caesar said, "I would rather be the leader of a village than to be the second man in Rome." It makes sense that Waters would wish to warn against that mentality. Kudos. Great job on this video.

_Another Brick in the Wall Part 3_ and _Money_ may get the most attention of all of Pink Floyd's mega-hits, but _Wish You Were Here_ has been my favourite song of theirs for decades, and remains so to this day. It's basically a perfect composition, with an ultra-weak cadence in the classic intro (II-7 sus4 to I) and introspective lyrics conveying a feeling of loss and of longing, while its verses and chorus are the only argument needed to put to bed the ill-conceived opinion that just because part of a song is in a major key doesn't mean it makes the listener feel happy. Nostalgia can be a powerful experience, but it's not a happy one when you know the times you yearn for are never coming back. That whole album was lightning-in-a-bottle (which is saying something considering that it followed up one of the most legendary rock albums of all time), but no song makes me _feel_ more than the title track.

@Polyphonic Get your facts straight. Gilmour sang the vocal tracks for Wish You Were Here, not Waters.

Dark Side may be the commercial hit, but IMO, WYWH is the magnum opus.

This song makes me cry every time I hear it. My Dad passed away when he was 52 years old and it still hurts. This song makes me think of him and he was also a Pink Floyd fan as well. Whatever happens when we pass away I don’t know but I truly hope I get to see him again but until then I will miss him.

Favorite song off the album

I think in this song more than a lot of places on the album is something more abstract than talking about the band and Syd. The song is an iconic sad commentary on selling out and the loss of idealism. And how the things one gets for selling out and sacrificing ideals (or friends) don't seem worth it later.

Perfection.

only if my teachers could explain me my subjects like you do

"Wish You Were Here" is so great that even my easy piano cover sounds good, check it out! 😉💥🎹 And congrats for this wonderful video!!! 👏👏👏

This song was actually written for my 9th grade girlfriend when I was in 8th grade, and I memorized each and every nuance of the song as I sung it to myself weeping like a 5th grader.

This song. This song means so much to me, I can't even begin to explain.

So much misconception in the narrators story. A load of crap. “Wish You Were Here” had nothing to do with Syd Barrett. “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” is about Syd Barrett.

no way you made a video about one of my favorite songs! it hurts to listen to, but its a beautiful pain.

Big fan from Argentina, when are you gonna make THE WALL?? Do it please!!

I would not have considered performing live as a "walk-on part in the war" but for someone like Roger Waters. I should be one of the first to understand that though, having been struggling to glfind my place on other people's stages since I was 14 years old and my own gig began. I only wish I was not so let down by Roger today. It's 2022, I'm a man with Ukrainian ancestry and am plugging for them to triumph over this Russian invasion - while Roger pens a letter to the Ukrainian First Lady, emploring her husband to surrender. He is hoping they'll take the leading role in a cage at the expense of the war.

this is how my mind works plus music theory is so awesome you can make this type of analysis with every song thats good jaja

What I want to know more than anything….Especially because the song is so straightforward in its lyrics. It also becomes a theme in a lot of there songs. Furthermore themes that make any good lyrics. I want to know how close was David Gilmore to the song “almost Independence Day?” Not only is the riff such an obvious building block for wywh. The lead is obviously influenced the song as well. They sound so familiar. I wish there was a way to know if he was listening to that song a lot, or if it it came out subconsciously. It’s one of my favorite adaptations of a song that lead to another song, if that’s in fact what happened. It’s almost just as close as stairway was to the song that came before it. I for one like to find when a song is borrowing from another. It happens subconsciously, but when it’s intended that’s when I get curious if there’s a story behind it.

Oh yeah I've been waiting for this one!

Actually, although 'Wish You Were Here' has the name being about Sid Barrett, 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond' is.