Pink Floyd’s classic 1975 album Wish You Were Here was released 50 years ago today (September 12) in the U.K., and a day later in the U.S. Coinciding with the milestone, the band has announced plans to reissue the album on December 12 in multiple formats and configurations, including as a deluxe box set.
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The reissue, which can be pre-ordered now, also will be available as a two-CD set, a three-LP vinyl collection, on Blu-ray, and digitally. All versions of the reissue feature the original five-track album, plus nine alternate takes and demo recordings. Six of the bonus tracks are previously unreleased. One of the unheard recordings, an early demo of “Welcome to the Machine” titled “The Machine Song” that features Roger Waters on vocals, has been made available as an advance digital track.
[RELATED: 5 Stories About the Making of Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here You’ve Probably Never Heard]
The digital and Blu-ray versions of the Wish You Were Here reissue also feature a 16-song Pink Floyd performance at Los Angeles Sports Arena on April 26, 1975, recorded by renowned bootlegger Mike Millard. The concert recording will receive its first official release as part of the reissue.
The Blu-ray all of the aforementioned recordings, and includes multiple mixes of Wish You Were Here. Among them is the first Dolby Atmos mix of the album, created by longtime Pink Floyd studio collaborator James Guthrie. The Blu-ray also boasts concert screen films from Pink Floyd’s 1975 tour, and a 2000 short film by Storm Thorgerson, co-founder of the famed Hipgnosis design agency.
About the Deluxe Wish You Were Here Box Set
The box set features the CDs, LPs, and Blu-ray. It also boasts a clear-vinyl LP featuring performances from a 1974 show at Wembley Empire Pool in London, and a 7-inch vinyl replica of a Japanese single featuring the Wish You Were Here tracks “Have a Cigar” and “Welcome to the Machine.”
The package also comes with a hardcover book containing unseen photographs, a comic-book tour program, and a Knebworth concert poster.
More About the Rarities Features on the Reissues
The unreleased material featured on the reissues also includes Waters first home demo of “The Machine Song,” and an instrumental mix of “Wish You Were Here” showcasing guitarist David Gilmour’s pedal-steel playing.
Also featured is a track that joins together all nine the parts of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.” On the Wish You Were Here album, the song is broken into two sections that begin and end the record—“Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Pts. 1-5) and “Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Pts. 6-9).”
About Wish You Were Here
Wish You Were Here was Pink Floyd’s ninth studio effort, a follow-up to the band’s massively successful 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon.
In addition to the classic title track, a “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” Wish You Were Here features two songs that turn a critical eye on the musical shallowness and greed of the music business—“Have a Cigar” and “Welcome to the Machine.”
“Shine On You Crazy Diamond” is an homage to Pink Floyd’s original frontman, Syd Barrett, who exited the group in 1968 because of drug and mental health issues. “Have a Cigar” featured guest lead vocals by British folk artist Roy Harper. According to Waters, “Wish You Were Here,” the album’s most famous track, was written as a lament over him feeling a growing lack of connection with his bandmates.
Wish You Were Here topped the Billboard 200 for two weeks in October 1975. It also spent a week at No. 1 on the U.K. albums chart that same month. The album has gone on to sell more than 6 million copies in the U.S.
About the Wish You Were Here Cover
Wish You Were Here’s cover features a photo of a man who is on fire shaking hands with another man. The surreal image was created by the Hipgnosis design team.
Hipgnosis co-founder Aubrey “Po” Powell, who shot the photo, recalled discussing the dilemma of capturing the pic with Storm Thorgerson.
“I remember turning around to Storm and saying, how are we going to set a man on fire?” he noted in a statement. “Because there was no digital way of doing it in those days. He said, Po, you’re just going to have to do it for real. That was it.”
Two stuntmen were hired for the shoot, which took place at what is now Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California. The stuntman who was set on fire, Ronnie Rondell Jr., dressed in a fireproof suit, and wore a business suit over that. He also wore a protective hood and a fireproof wig on his head. In addition, fire-resistant gel was applied to him. The shoot was successful, of course, but Rondell suffered minor burns and a singed mustache during one take.
(Photo by Storm Thorgerson/Courtesy of Sony Music Entertainment)
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