Pink Floyd: The Story of Wish You Were Here Page #5

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MAN The Effects Will Step out

and He's got a wand About That Long with a Fire on the end of it,

They and go, "We're Ready, Action, and He just touches the Three

or four spots Like That, steps out, Everything is burning,

and IT's still a Picture, SO ... Shake shaking hands -

nothing to IT.

And After I HAD About shot, I suppose, 15 shots,

and 15 times for somebody to catch fire is rather a lot,

Suddenly a Gust of Breeze Came up.

And the fire whipped round his face.

There's a Funny thing About Fire - When IT Gets in your Face

you 're going to move, that's just part of the thing.

And once IT IT blew around, I Turned as fast as I Could.

He fell to the Ground, absolutely Smothered with foam

and Blankets and Everything Like That. He got up and he said,

"That's IT, no More."

Luckily, I got in the IT can.

And here We See HIS Foot leaving frame.

And That's a Sort of surreal Image of Absence in Itself , you know?

But That's Real Absence.

Out of frame, out of sight, you know?

And you just kept shooting?

I just kept shooting, yeah.

I Mean, I HAD to Get this shot and IT HAD to be right.

So, you know, I did not have time to be Concerned with HIS Singed body.

You know, if They Want Somebody burning and they're going to Pay me,

I Don ' t care if they have an artist drawing the fire.

When Developing a Theme of Absence,

IT Seemed therefore Appropriate that in the end,

Should the cover be absent.

The ... UM ... Got it here.

The ... UM ...

This is the end Piece, or the end Part of the puzzle.

Anyway, the Record Company, Especially in America,

Went Complete apeshit.

"You Mean wrap Wish You Were Here in Black Opaque Shrink wrap

"you can not See SO IT? Are you completely f***ing mad? "

But you HAD to have a Sticker That said What IT was,

otherwise the factory wouldn't pack it properly,

let alone the Fans Buy IT.

I Hear Stories That there are some aficionados ...

.. Who have ... Who have HAD HAD Wish You Were Here for many a Year now,

and have Carefully slit the Opaque Vinyl Shrink wrap

and the Extracted Record

and have not Actually Seen the cover in 35 years.

Brilliant. That's really absent.

Well, That's the one I CAN quite Clearly Remember .

That was me strumming a 12 string guitar,

Which I'd recently Purchased from a Guy I know,

Coming up with and, you know, the opening riff

of Wish You Were Here.

And again, Like ...

Like the four Notes at the Beginning of Shine On You Crazy Diamond,

Other People start going, "Hey,

"That's Good, you've got something there."

And I said to HIM, "What's That You're Playing? That's really nice."

And He Played IT.

And I said, "That's really Good.

"Maybe I Should try and do something with IT."

Those Chords and Putting in to the ... in to the Whole thing, and Roger ...

did .. Those Brilliant Words, and there We Were.

# Did They Get you to Trade your heroes for ghosts

# Hot ashes for trees

# Hot Air for a cool Breeze

# Cold comfort for Change

# And did you exchange

# A Walk on part in the war

# For a lead role in a cage? #

That collaboration Between David and I, I think is, you know,

really Good. All bits of IT are really, really Good.

So I ' m very happy about it.

# So, you Think SO CAN tell you

Heaven from hell #

# Blue Skies from Pain

# Can you tell a green Field

# From a Cold, steel rail?

# A smile from a Veil?

# Do you Think you CAN tell? #

I Think Most of the Songs That I've Ever Written

All Pose Similar questions.

Can you Free Yourself Enough to be Able to Experience the Reality

of life as IT Goes on before you

and with you, and as you go on as Part of IT or not?

Because if you can not, you Stand on square one until you die.

And I know That May sound Like Bullshit,

That's What but the Song is About .

# How I wish How I wish you Were here

# We're just two lost Souls Swimming in a fish bowl

Year After Year #

# Running over the Ground Same old

# What We have found?

# The Same old fears

# Wish you Were here. #

All the Songs are Encouraging me,

I guess I write Them for me,

and IT's to Encourage Myself ...

.. not to accept a lead role in a cage ...

.. but to go on demanding of Myself

That I Keep auditioning

for the walk on part in the war, because that's where I want to be.

I Want to be in the trenches.

I do not Want to be at headquarters or I do not Want to be sitting

in a Hotel somewhere.

I Want to be ... I Want to be Engaged ...

.. Probably, I Might Say,

in a way That My father Would Approve of.

It's a very simple Sort of Country Song, if you Like.

It's still ... Because of resonance ITS

and the emotional IT Carries Weight,

IT is one of our best songs.

People do attach to IT Internal Lots of feelings That They May have,

and they may not be entirely sure what it's about, and neither am I.

I Mean, I'm Only telling you What's About IT for me.

But there's no reason why Other People should not put

Other Interpretations on IT, Which Could be just as Valid.

Although Shine On You Crazy Diamond

is the one That is specifically About Syd, and Wish You Were Here

.. I can not Sing IT without Thinking About Syd.

My Memory is That I Came in to the Studio

and there was this Guy Standing there in a Gabardine raincoat,

and a large, large bloke, and I HAD no idea Who was IT.

And Surprisingly, no-one's Saying, "Who's That person?

"What's He doing Wandering around All Our gear in the Studio?"

And then ... then Coming in to HIM the control room and standing around,

and How Remarkable, How Long IT was before anyone woke up Actually.

Finally , I think it was David who said, "Nick, do you recognise him?"

And I Looked and I Think I shrugged Either My Shoulders

and said, "It's Syd".

And We just Sort of Stood there,

or SAT Were there and just Shell-shocked, Basically.

And then until Somebody Thought of something to Say to HIM.

And then We Were All unbelievably shocked at HIS appearance.

I Mean, I did not Recognise HIM, I did not know IT was HIM.

But IT was Pretty ...

.. Pretty Affecting, really.

I Mean, Roger and Dave Cried.

You know, this slim, elegant ...

.. if bedraggled and Dazed That person I HAD Last Seen, HAD Turned

rather Balloon shaped, and HAD no eyebrows and not much Hair, and ...

And there is the Photograph of HIM in the Studio at the time,

and if you Looked at Syd in Early '67

and then Syd, SO IT was Different.

It was a Great Loss and, you know ...

.. Imagining What He Would have gone on to do is. ..

That Speculating on, if you Like, is ...

He Could have SO Become Great.

It's kind of nice Actually Standing up here with These Three guys

After All These years.

Standing to be counted with the rest of you.

Anyway, we're doing this for everyone Who's not here,

but particularly, of Course, for Syd.

HE intones

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