Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here Meaning

Song Released: 1975

Wish You Were Here Lyrics

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?
And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for...

1. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   May 20th 2012 !⃝

   I guess I'm the only one thinking in this direction (and it might be completely wrong but then again: it's all about the subjective experience)... I feel like it refers to God. "Wish You Were Here" sounds like both longing and disappointment. "So you think you can tell Heaven from Hell" makes it even more obvious and I interpret it as: you divide Heaven and Hell up there, but down here things are real and they're pretty f***ed up. "Trade your heroes for ghosts" would (in this case) refer to all the Big Stories, saints and heroes who are now no more than ghosts unable to fix anything. Further more, "He" has "a lead role in a cage". It's still a cage, doesn't matter if you're the boss. Look around you. You're obviously not here and I wish you were.
   
   Anyway, maybe I've gone too far with this one. But it's how I felt it.
2. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Apr 24th 2012 !⃝

   I think the song's about how Syd lost his mind. Like he was in another reality. Wish you were here is the other band members saying, our friend went crazy and he's not here mentally anymore. "Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky."
3. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Apr 24th 2012 !⃝

   I think the song's about how Syd lost his mind. Like he was in another reality. Wish you were here is the other band members saying, our friend went crazy and he's not here mentally anymore. "Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky."
4. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Dec 11th 2011 !⃝

   This song, like many other pink floyd songs, should be listened to, when high. I feel the song unfolds a totally new meaning when listened to in a state of trance. "Wish you were here" is an one-end conversation between two versions of the same person, our real selves, the one who is stuck in the quagmire of the daily life, and the higher self, the one who is outside this circle of influence of the external stimuli.
   Day in day out we try to untangle the shackle life has put on us, we try to solve the mystery of the cycle of happiness and sorrow in our own way, we try to fit things in our definitions of black and white, good and bad, heaven and hell, and this constant endeavor makes us believe we can actually differentiate between every thing that surrounds us. Then comes a state which is above everything. A state of mind where nothing really matters, where words seem fake, the black and white world troubles no more and we realize how stupid we were to have cared about the small things and in the process made our lives small.
   I will explain this conversation, (or monologue) from the point of view of two forms,
   Form 1 - The normal us, or the conscious form.
   Form 2 - The higher form, the sagacious form.
   "So, do you think you can tell, heaven from hell, blue skies from pain, can you tell a green field, from a cold steel rail, do you think you can tell?" this part of the song is a mockery thrown by form 2 upon form 1. He mocks him by saying, "how silly you were to have cared about good & bad, black & white, when nothing actually matters. So what you can tell what is good and what is bad, how does it matter? that, what is good to you can be bad for me. How silly were you to have thought that you know the lines of difference, when everything in this world is absolute."
   "Did they get you to trade, your heroes for ghosts, hot ashes for trees. hot air for cool breeze, cold comfort for a change, did you exchange a walk-on part in the war, for a lead role in a cage?"
   We all sell ourselves everyday. To find a momentary happiness, to achieve a short-lived goal, we weigh ourselves on the other side of the balance. They trade us daily and we sacrifice in the process. We sacrifice the things we love, the things that make us the man we really are. We tie the knot so tight that we forget it chokes us dead. Here form 2 feels sorry for form 1 and he sympathizes with form 1 and asks him were you put into trade too?.
   "How I wish, how I wish you were here, we're just two lost souls, swimming in a fish bowl, tear after year, Running over the same old ground.
   What have we found? The same old fears.
   Wish you were here.."
   Now form 2 asks form 1 to set free of all the attachments that bind him to the ground and stops him from flying away. He tells him that they have lived in the same fish bowl (body) for many years and have seen the same things and have developed the same fears, but form 1 has been affected by those fears and that is why he suffers, on the other hand, form 2 remains undeterred as for him the small things in life does not really matter. So form 2 wishes form 1 to come to his state.
5. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Sep 17th 2011 !⃝

   I have loads and loads and shit loads of problems with Pink Floyd--most especially with Roger the Dolt. An arrogant, pretentious man who has made millions nearly billions on a mentally ill man whom he claims to have once been friends with.
   "You piper, you martyr" "You target for faraway laughter".
   "Wish You Were Here" is the apothesious of exploitation of a real life tragedy. If I were Waters, I'd donate all (ALL!!!) my earnings to NAMI (The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill).
   Waters may be a brilliant composer. But like most all millioniares of rock, he has no ethic, no moral calling to speak off. He's a brutish cynic. And, among the sloven disaffected adolscents this pays handsomely.
   Get a real job and stop picking on the mentally ill!!!
6. Deepthinker

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Jul 27th 2011 !⃝

   Personally, i think this song is about a person wishing that his loved one was with him throughout all his good and bad experiences in life even if she doesn't really feel the same.... it could be literally, that he misses the person's actual physical company who's absence was probably caused by "worldly" complications, prompting the couple to separate or that he is indeed still with the person physically but she has changed, her inner self has become different from what she used to be and now he misses what they had. its pretty sad, because it's something you can't change, when you still have the person but the couple "thing" just won't click anymore, and people stay together just for a hopeful change or for respect.
7. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Jun 8th 2011 !⃝

   I cant help but think this is a song about 2 soldiers in Viet Nam. He is on a patrol and wondering why on earth he is where he is and how this beautiful land can be so horrible ("so you think you can tell heaven from hell")Everything is running together. How the green field is contrasted by the steel barrel in his rifle(can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail")How the recruiters told him about all the brave dead soldiers to get him to enlist ("did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts").How the trees now become hot ashes after the napalm explodes ("hot ashes for trees"). He asks is that just a boy smiling or someone trying to kill me ("a smile for a veil") How it would have been different if he had just refused to go to war and went to jail ("did you exchange a walk on part in a war for a lead role in a cage").
   He thinks about his girl friend back home ("how I wish how I wish you were here")He wonders why day after day he walks around looking for the enemy ("running over the same old ground, what have we found, the same old fears").
8. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Jun 6th 2011 !⃝

   I don't think you all got it...
   
   The author talks about how you trade something that isn't nice in your life (something you need to change) for... change. and how it can be difficult, because although what you had wasn't what you wanted, change to something different just because you think it's right it's hard. suppose you're in a relationship with someone you don't like, but treats you well. You don't like him/her- but still, she treates you well. THIS IS JUST AN EXAMPLE (because i'm pretty sure he's talking bout his whole life, not about just a relationship), but suppose we're talking bout a relationship... he makes it clear in lots of parts of the lyrics:
   "So you think you can tell heaven from hell?"
   So, do you really know what's good for you? do you really know what you want...
   "did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts, hot ashes for trees, hot air for a cool breeze, COLD COMFORT FOR CHANGE"
   I think hot air for a cool breeze makes reference to something that was constant but wasn't fulfilling, for a quick relief - and then sadness for having to "detach" from what used to be your comfort. And finally, my favorite, COLD COMFORT FOR CHANGE... it says everything...
   
   Song full of mysteries that, somehow, fit in every single moment of my life.
9. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   May 3rd 2011 !⃝

   Ok I've watched documentaries and read a lot about the album Wish You Were Here. The album itself was inspired by the life of Syd Barret, a former band member who had an emotional/mental breakdown spawned from over use of drugs (LSD) and the shock of stardom and expectation. He went insane and ended up in isolation from society to the day he died. The death of his parents along the way fueled depression and sadness as he depended on them for comfort, for life. He never was social with anyone else (hence Isolation). One day Syd Barrett decided to walk into the Abbey Road studios DURNIG THE RECORDING of the song Shine On You Crazy Diamond written specifically about and for him (in a sense). "Come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner and Shine." Syd Barret was an artist and did many self portraits and other art pieces. "You Piper" referece to the album The Piper At The Gates Of Down which was Pink Floyd's first album as a band which Syd vast wrote the majority of the music. So the album Shine On You Crazy Diamond is also a critisizing of the music industry with Have a Cigar and Welcome to the Machine (which incorporated both the music industry with themes of Syd Barrett (Syd's sudden welcome to Machien that is the music industry)). The song Wish You Were Here is a more accepting, more calm song then the mourning of Shine On You Crazy Diamond and the rest. Its about Syd Barrett and his life and events in his life. Although it was originally about Syd "Wish You Were Here applies to so much more," in the words of Roger Waters.
10. James Cameron

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Apr 18th 2011 !⃝

    It's a song about disillusionment and loss. Beautifully written with fantastic imagery, and the music accompanying it is equally wonderful.
    
    <--(My description of the song "Wish you Were Here" in 20 words or less. ;o)
11. anonymous

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Apr 17th 2011 !⃝

    The song is about Roger Waters wishing things with Syd Barrett being the way they used to, before the acid destroyed his mind. They had problems with recording Wish You Were Here and even brought in Roy Harper to sing, Barrett was a rare choice if he could of kept his mind together long enough to do the album. He was too out of it so he was not able to help on the album. Water's felt bad that Barrett could not play with them again and it depressed him.
12. anonymous

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Apr 13th 2011 !⃝

    A Day at Jack and Jill
13. anonymous

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Jan 16th 2011 !⃝

    Wow, I wonder how many people on this site are retarded.. Seriously this song is about both and I do have the album named," i wish you were here," and it says in the album that it is a tribute to syde barrett, and music can be dedicated to many things, manythings being syde barretts demise and superstardome... and whatever retard clames none of the songs are about syde are simple minded idiots who dont know pink floyd... both the wall and the album i wish you were here are tributes to syde barrett... and why would they name a different album that... it was because roger waters thought that shine on you crazy diamond should be split with i wish you were here because wish you were here was primarily about syde barrets mental decline.... the funny thing is shine also had been a trubute,look up your facts before you say shit.
14. anonymous

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Jan 15th 2011 !⃝

    Syd went into a mental institution from all the drug use and this song was written to him by the band.
15. anonymous

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Nov 17th 2010 !⃝

    This song asks the listener if they understand and see what is really happening around them. Individual reality and the listeners' frame of reference for their own life and how it is affected by society in every day life. How society drives/leads us, even tho the values of society and where it is heading may not ultimately be directed toward a good place in the end.
    
    "Society" for a lack of a better word throughout this dark interpretation being the driving forces of humanity including politics, mass marketing, mass media, war, greed for money at all cost, wastefulness, religion, wanting more and never being satisfied with what we have, plain disillusionment of what a civilized culture is. Perhaps - being so caught up in the rat race that we can't take a step back to see what is happening around us - is a better way to put it.
    
    "so you think you can tell" questioning whether or not you are so caught up with your life that you may actually think that you are aware of the differences between "heaven and hell". Society, where it is heading, is it heaven or really hell? or do we live in a hell that we think is heaven?
    
    Blue skies from pain - can you tell your pie in the sky life from reality, which for some is a painful existence. Do you know the difference between them? Is trying to be on cloud nine worth all the trouble?
    
    Once again questioning each listener "can you tell a green field" the beautiful life that you think you live or may want to live, because society keeps you wanting - from what is holding you back "a cold steel rail" - society driving so hard that we lose site of what is important. Things like compassion for one another, patience, well being of our planet.
    
    "a smile" - what society makes you think is right with a happy face on it, to the reality - a fake smile "veil" to keep you believing that everything is going well. Just keep following the same old path. Everyone out for themselves.
    
    "Do you think you can tell?" perhaps a sarcastic way of saying, sure, you think you can, but can you really? Do you even know there's a problem?
    
    Did they - who are "they" - society? the rat race? get you to trade "heroes" the things that you believed in that once made you innocent and let you look forward to your future, for "ghosts" the things that society values and aren't valuable - materialistic possessions, greed, fashion, keeping up with the Jones'.
    
    "Hot ashes" - what are your values? Need to participate in the destruction of the planet through desolation in a self destructing society that reinforces perpetual greed or do you know what is right - to keep things natural "trees" and the world a safer place for the future. Can you see what is happening around you? ARE YOU PART OF THE PROBLEM OR PART OF THE SOLUTION?
    
    Hot air for a cool breeze, re-emphasizing the trade off between going with the flow or trying to make a difference.
    
    "Cold comfort" does the listener take comfort in being part of this cold world or can they see room for improvement in their own life and "change" by not being caught up with societies driving forces.
    
    and finally the "exchange a walk on part in a war for ........" he puts the final nail in the coffin here, summing it all up; asks the listener - have they lost sight of what he/she should be fighting for by becoming a participant of the master plan and whole heartedly conforming to society. Therefore putting yourself into a cage like an animal that has no control over it's surroundings.
    
    How I wish you were here - on the other side, seeing it from another perspective, not so caught up in it all. Like him.
    
    two lost souls swimming, - no matter how we look at it, we are all part of everything that is happening, we all swim along within this fish bowl, along with other lost souls, trying to live our lives to get by, day after day. The reality "running over the same of ground" - talking about it over and over again, we still end up in the same perplexing place of fear, that it will never stop or get better because society has such a stronghold on so many and not enough people see it.
    
    Wish you were here, on this side, not getting caught up and helping society - big business, government, religion, etc. run amuck for their own agendas.
    
    Dismantling this song just brought me down. Didn't know how else to see it. Although there are a couple of other good ones here too. Syd? Maybe, but I'd rather think it's a lot bigger than a former band member, because it's such a great song.
    
    From - Not another brick in the wall.

Latest Articles

• 
  A new era for Millennial favorite, Linkin Park
• 
  Anime to watch for the soundtracks… and other reasons you’re undateable
• 
  Dolly, we need you
• 
  The Stranger Things Effect: How new media is drawing Gen Z and Alpha's attention to aging media
• 
  The most underrated soundtrack of the early 2000s
• 
  Buy the Soundtrack, Skip the Movie: Brainscan (1994)