Understanding "Wish You Were Here"
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ต.ค. 2024
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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.
Nice way to put it! For me, it says what I want to say, expresses something I can't express but which I need to have said for me.
Sad you lost so much :( I too have this kind of relation with it. The song surely makes you turn up the radio each time it flows. Simple to learn the rhythm guitar part as well. Harder to sing though, for md at least. Cheers
So sorry Tyler
Wow, that's so insightful. A cold hug that doesn't bring you up or let you down, just sits with you. Thank you for expressing that
I feel you.
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.
Echoes
Amazing
This song is timeless. And it feels painful yet soothing to hear.
The song is timeless, but this episode is oddly brief.
@@Ingens_Scherz I mean he analyses the song while it's being played in the background, so it had to be as long as the song itself
@@Ingens_Scherz That’s because the videos are as long as the songs in the background.
@@kofiswisconsin1552 plus i think the lyrics say a lot not a ton to break down. For me wish you where here is intensly personal and he does a good job not taking away but stressing that. Not much words needed on this one i think
Like it makes you sad, but somehow helps with the sadness it caused.
Love the design language of polyphonic. It’s streets ahead of most of the rest of TH-cam and deserves far wider exposure. Thank you.
Stop trying to make streets ahead a thing
@@Ratmatia coined and minted
Great comment.
@@basb7545 been there coined that
Referencing my favourite sitcom & one of my favourite shows of all time i see
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.
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.
❤
❤
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 💔
Have you listened to the entire album? Shine On in its entirety (9 parts), although specifically about Syd, captures a general sense of loss, absence and longing incredibly effectively. It's an incredibly mournful piece of music, even more so than the album's title track.
“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 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.
Sorry to hear that, I know I’m only a stranger but I wish you all the best ❤
@@CustardShop330 Thanks man I appreciate it
@@InqMozgus I am so sorry for your loss. I hope you find peace in remembering your dear brother, the great times you had together, the impact he had on you and so many others. He’ll always be with you, and that’s a wonderful thing. ❤️
Still one of my favorite songs to this day, it really does make me wish someone or something was here with me
💚
This song is literally an anthem for the disenfranchised of the internet age....fake connection while being so isolated and lonely....
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.
I'm so sorry to hear that, (I've already written this under another comment in this thread but it is even more fitting here)
It was my dad's favourite vinyl and since he's gone this is my last connection to him, him teaching me how to listen to it, enjoying it together.
It even still has that one scratch on shine on you crazy diamond where pushed the needle.
It's such a beautiful but sad song and one of the only songs that have never gotten and probably will never get sick of.
It's the feeling of coming to your home town, remembering everything but also seeing how things changed, how time has passed and all the memories are truly in the past.
It's the yearning for more time with the ones we love and loved, more memories and experience.
I really appreciate this song.
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.
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.
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.
This is genuinely one of my favorite series you’ve done, been hoping you’d do this for years
If interested, consult the cited sources. It's good for everyone, including the channel. You understand this? 2:02 Not yet!
The song is about Syd Barrett, the original frontman and chief songwriter of the Floyd, who left the group in 1968 after his mental and physical health and reliabity deteriorated
"Wish You Were Here" is about the detached feeling many of us float through life with.
Wish You Were Here', an ode to Pink Floyd's founding member Syd Barrett begins with a section of somebody listening to the radio 3:33
The essence of Wish You Were Here is tension. There is tension in the music and tension in the lyrics, and very little in the way of resolution.
Pink Floyd's Roger Waters Thinks 'Wish You Were Here' Is A Modern Protest Song.
Sources: Classic Album Sundays; Cosmic Magazine; Radio X; Songfacts
Excellent video. Qualified. Produced with due care. 4:45
Very well done! One of my favorite bands and tracks. I saw Pink Floyd twice. Animals tour and The Wall. Phenomenal shows!!
I heard the animals tour was wild!
I'm a millennial, but my grandmother was 9 months pregnant with my mom when she saw them live in '72. Obscured by Clouds is actually my favourite Floyd album, so I'm a bit envious haha
@@alecoram7874 It was wild. I saw them at Anaheim Stadium with their big inflatable pig that tour. The sound quality and big screen were both pretty amazing for the time. 1977-78.
Maybe make something on The Police one day ? One of my favorite trios of all time
@Cruikshank their blend of punk and reggae was infectious, their sound was so unique
Stuart Copeland is one of my greatest influences.
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.
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.
This tune has evoked nostalgia in me ever since I first heard it on the radio when I was 12 years old
It was a love song for me for years. Oddly grieving for that. Awesome work Polyphonic
Well it IS a love song, but platonic love, nothing sexual or about any string attached. It's the human love, friendship, brotherhood, empathy...
One of my favorite songs!
“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
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
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.
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!
I still can't listen to this song without getting chills, and your video captures the feeling of the song so well. Bravo.
This song. This song means so much to me, I can't even begin to explain.
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.
Still one on the most beautiful and haunting songs ever written.
no way you made a video about one of my favorite songs! it hurts to listen to, but its a beautiful pain.
Probably one of the songs I never skip or get tired of.
Such a beautiful song, no matter how many times it's heard, it still hits you in those feels💚☘🤌
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
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.
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.
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.
This series is incredible...
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
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.
I don't think I'm emotionally ready for the end of this series...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Wow, that last bit gave me chills. Great job!
Damn, Polyphonic! Beautifully told! This song kills me every time I hear it.
love that u didnt interrupt the "chorus"
Favorite song off the album
Wish you were here barrett . Rest in Peace.
I don't think I have ever not shed a tear while listening to this song.
No matter the time of day or how I'm feeling, it never fails to get an emotional response out of me.
You put so much work into your videos and I appreciate it.
love your stuff on pink floyd
My most favorite video on TH-cam, ever! Thank you Polyohinic for such a wonderful piece of content!
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.
Seriously my favorite channel on TH-cam! Nicely done
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.
Loved your commentary on the song and the visuals were stunning. Wish You Were Here is such a comforting yet sad song to me and you really added to my appreciation for it. I look for wards to the last part of this series.
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.
you have the nicest looking videos on youtube and I'm sill stunned every time I see them. great job
I’m grateful TH-cam introduced me to your content. I’ve listened to this song plenty of times and thought I’d considered everything there was to “get” about the song. As usual your commentary gives me new context and even more to ponder over.
This song hits different when u have lost a loved one 😢
I know I miss you papa always love you
"Simply Beautiful" Thank you for this gem brother...
One of my favourite songs! Great series!
Good work!
The visuals and the script are quite captivating.
Man, I love this channel
amazing art
Easily one of the best songs ever written.
Although it's essentially a perfect piece of music, and WYWH is my favourite album ever, the title track is definitely not the greatest song ever written. No "song" that's part of a suite can really be the best song ever because it's not really a song in the traditional sense. It fades in from the previous track and fades into the next. To me, a perfectly written song is one that stands alone and doesn't need to be heard in the context of a 40 minute suite to truly be appreciated.
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.
Hey almost 1 million subs. Hopefully this video should get you over the top.
This is such a dope way of explaining music
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.
such a great audiovisual presentation
This whole series has been great
The visual style of your videos are 👌
Man you have such good quality in your videos and such amazing storytelling what a great video cant wait for the next one
Ur my favorite TH-camr rn please keep up this amazing content also the illustrations are so sick
These have been some of the best videos on TH-cam
For some reason, I still cry after the first notes of this song begin
Wish you were here is the greatest album of ALL TIME.
Another great video from polyphonic
Beautifully done, thank you.
I am really looking forward to a video on The Wall someday.
it is this fish bowl that always gets me
_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.
Amazing, thank you for making it
Yes another video!!!! Love your channel ❤ keep it going
have a very personal connection to this song. great video, thank yooooooooou
Oh yeah I've been waiting for this one!
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 ❤️
I've enjoyed this as it's one of my favorite albums. I'm really hoping you do a series for Animals, another one of my favorite albums.
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.
Loved the lo-fi sound in the intro of the song
The first song I ever played with my guitar on stage. Absolutely timeless.
Thank you for this.
That was a very good discussion of the song. Thank you!