Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd album)
Recording
Syd Barrett's visit
Waters was reportedly reduced to tears by the sight of his former bandmate. Fellow visitor Andrew King) asked Barrett how he had gained weight; he said that he had been overeating while living in isolation. He showed an unexpected enthusiasm for participating in the recording of the album, but while listening to the mix of "Shine On", showed no signs of understanding its relevance to him. Barrett also joined Gilmour's wedding reception in the EMI canteen, but left unnoticed. Apart from Waters seeing Barrett in Harrods a couple of years later, it has been agreed by biographers and journalists to be the last time any member of the band saw him alive. This series of events is regarded to have tonally influenced the final version of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond". Waters said later that "'Shine On' is not really about Syd—he's just a symbol for all the extremes of absence some people have to indulge in because it's the only way they can cope with how fucking sad it is, modern life, to withdraw completely. I found that terribly sad."
Instrumentation
As with The Dark Side of the Moon, the band used synthesizers such as the EMS VCS 3 (on "Welcome to the Machine"), but softened with Gilmour's acoustic guitar, and percussion from Mason. The beginning of "Shine On" contains remnants from a previous but incomplete studio recording by the band known as "Household Objects". Wine glasses had been filled with varying amounts of fluid, and recordings were made of a wet finger circling the edge of each glass. These recordings were multi-tracked into chords.
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