PINK FLOYD

Wish You Were Here

(Columbia)

Ah lads, so you’ve tasted success and found that you don’t care for it? More’s the pity. There’s plenty of bands that would love to be in your shoes, you know. Well, let’s get down to business: what do you want out of all this, anyway?

Rock continues to mature and confront its own paradoxes, despite its inherent infantilism. Mick tells himself that it’s only rock ’n roll to sedate himself to mere show-biz status, perhaps having finally convinced himself (and his audience?) of his own impotence to inspire anything more substantial than an orgasm. Townshend remains ari articulate intelligence (though his next attempt will be crucial) gnd there are others who come through sporadically: Dylans Lennon, Newman, Bowie, Hunter, etc. And the Floyd, whose recent step-up from cult band to superstardom has brought about some changes in perception as well as lifestyle.

Their vehicle for this success was, of course, Dark Side of the Moon, which not only made the top of the charts here but was a best seller in England for over two years. Cries of sell out were both inevitable and groundless; even at their “experimental” high water mark, Ummagumma, their ideas were being usurped by King Crimson and other more technically proficient bands including jazzmen like Miles Davis and the Tony Williams Lifetime. After vacillating for a few years, they decided to give fatal egalitarianism a kick in the crotch, letting Roger Waters take care of the lyrics (thus giving -the band a much-needed head) and letting Dave Gilmour do the bulk of the lead Singing. Their first prdject after this realignment of priorities was Dark Side; Wish You Were Here continues the process.

Thematically, Wish suggests a perpendicularity with Neil Young’s recent Tonight’s The Night. Neil is haunted by the deaths of his cohorts §o he sings of druggedt-out losers in a painful and ragged manner. The Floyd are freaked out by the disintegration of their erstwhile mentor, Syd Barrett, and by the overwhelming success that he started them on the path towards, yet their hdnds never shake on their instruments, their voices never crack. It’s difficult to scream with a stiff upper lip.

So they don’t, but tneir exhortations to Barrett are moving just the same. The two-part “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” which opens and closes the album, is a plea from the band left alone, plagued by a frightening retention of sanity, for the man “caught on the cross-fire of childhood and starddm.” Musically, it?s the most backdated piece, recalling the past Floyd foible of establishing a mood, then running it into the ground. One wonders, however, if they do this here as a means of numbing themselves from their subject matter.

The title track seems to be a more personal note from Waters to Barrett, done in a rougher, more acoustic style, similar to some of Barrett’s post-Floyd work. “Did you exchange a walk-on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?” Waters muses.

Of course if Barrett was still with the band, he wouldn’t be able to deal with the exigencies of stardom any better thian he did the first time around. The other two tracks were probably written on their American tour in response to their busfness experiences here and take the places of “Gotta Be Crazy” and “Raving and Drooling,” which were premiered on the tour.

“Have a Cigar” is the lesser of the two, a notso-subtle put-down of the greed grunts who inhabit the industry. “We’re so happy we can hardly count,” the chump chortles, as the band adds some funk farts to their synthi-stew.

“Welcome To The Machine” is more farreaching, a nightmare come true for the Floyd who have just realized that success merely redefines flunky status on a higher plane. For most, the mansions and all are sufficient rewards but for a band who retain more than a little residue of late 60’s socio-political consciousness, who have worked with Antonioni and other serious artists, who have probably never considered themselves pop stars, and who have never lived for cars and girls, the situation must be incredibly galling. “You bought a guitar to punish your ma/And you didn’t like school/ And you know you’re nobody’s fool/So welcome to the machine.”* Goes a bit deeper than “Last of the Rock Stars,” no?

Well fine, lads, have it your own way. We’ve given you all we can; the rest you’ll have to find for yourselves if it exists at all. But before I leave, could I get some autographs for the wife? She loves your records, you know. None of you actually named Floyd, eh? Well, the times they are a changing, as the kids say. See you around, lads. Best of luck.

*Pink Floyd Music Publishing, Inc. BMI