About ten days ago my daughter Madison wrote a post about the Pink Floyd song "Wish You Were Here" where she mentioned that she did not know what I thought it meant, but that for her the song was about living in shades of gray. For me the song always had three meanings. The first is the meaning that David Gilmour and Roger Waters gave it. They have both said publicly that they wrote the song as a tribute to Syd Barrett, a member of their band that did too much acid, and eventually had a mental breakdown and became a schizophrenic. The song, they say, was written for him. The other two meanings are just what I always got from the song. Overall, I think the song is about the certainty of youth, and that how over time a lot of what you were once certain about turns out to be totally false, or at least not how you pictured it. In fact, I have always felt that the song was about disillusionment with the Vietnam War. Admittedly, the first reason I will dive into was my first thoughts on the song, while my second meaning developed over time as I got older.I have pasted the lyrics below. Read them, think about them a bit and then read through my explanation. "Wish You Were Here" So, so you think you can tell 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? Did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts? Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze? Cold comfort for change? Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? 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 same old ground. What have we found? The same old fears. Wish you were here. Okay, so in just looking at the first two stanzas I see a number of hints that the questions that start the song could be from either a friend or a lover to a man who is just about to sign up to go fight in the Vietnam War. Many signed up because they thought they were saving the world from communism. The friend asks: Do you think you can tell heaven from hell? Is what we have here truly better than what they have over there, when you have never been over there? Can you confidently say things are worse over there, or just different? How much can you really tell from what you have seen of the world? The second stanza asks questions of the soldier while he is in Vietnam. He has already seen action. He has seen friends and people he respects die (trade heroes for ghosts). He has watched Napalm turn green jungle into a burning hell and has felt the hot air from the explosions (Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze?) He realizes that he left his home for an ideal that doesn't exist and therefore refuses to fight any more and gets put in prison (Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?) The third stanza is his friend or lover lamenting the foolishness of it all and missing the friend who is in jail. To me, "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", is the tribute song to Barrett and "Wish You Were Here" is a tribute song to those disillusioned with their part in the failed Vietnam War. Remember, the album came out in 1975, after the U.S. ended their foray into Vietnam. U.S. goals were not achieved in Vietnam and many people were disillusioned afterward, and indeed during the conflict. Am I right? Who knows, but it was always what I thought the song was about. On a more personal level, things I was certain about in my youth, I am now certain I was wrong about. The meaning of life, what happiness is and isn't, and how I was going to live my life. What I thought I knew, what I think I know now and what I will think in the future is all so uncertain. Finally thinking back on my group of friends that I had growing up...we all thought we would be a close-knit group forever. It's funny how we are now spread out all over the map leading our own lives separately. I know people I consider good friends that I haven't spoken to in over a decade! Occasionally, I will see a post from one or the other of them on Facebook, but for the most part, we have very little contact. There is nothing wrong with that. We all went our separate ways. It reminds me of lines from the song Time from the Dark Side Of The Moon album: Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain. You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today. And then one day you find ten years have got behind you. No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun. So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking Racing around to come up behind you again. The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older, Shorter of breath and one day closer to death. No one told us when to run... we just did. We ran all over the United States. Only one or two stayed in New Jersey. The rest of us flew to points north, south east and west. Funny, after all these years, with little contact, I still consider most of those people friends. And, on some nights, when I am thinking about my younger days, I really still do wish they were here.
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