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

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   Nov 28th 2009 !⃝

   The song is roger waters saying I wish you were here to Syd Barret who became a paranoid schizophrenic from excessive use of LSD the songs about the band missing him and how he slowly began to lose his grip on reality. Watch the movie the wall it's basically Syd's biography except trippier.
2. Nickylu22

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   Nov 13th 2009 !⃝

   Ok. I gotta get my opinion of this song out while I still have it fresh in my mind with the inspiration flowing. Please excuse any and all typing/spelling errors. Thank you. Now I feel as if I must dissect this piece by piece.
   
   
   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?
   
   -Well here, he is asking you (as a human being and an individual who is part of shaping the world and society we live in now) if in the world around you, you are able of deciding what is best for you, what is best for everyone, and to be able to make the choices to make the world a better place as well as to not be fooled into a false state of security with a life that seems beautiful, but it only feels that way because that is what you have been taught, and programmed, and you need to able to experience life to the fullest including both good and bad circumstances.
   
   
   Do you think you can tell?
   
   -Waters is asking the world if it able to change and know the difference between the timeless battle of good and evil. "Do you really think you are experienced enough?"
   
   
   And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
   Hot ashes for trees?
   Hot air for a cool breeze?
   Cold comfort for change?
   
   -In the world there is so much corrupt power and outside influences trying to lure us to temptations of the wrong type. but this is done by offering things in our lives that we feel would better benefit us or make our lives happier. and that we will gladly give up our rights to certain things for an easy solution. a quick fix. not necessarily the best.
   
   
   And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
   
   -The war is the ongoing and constant change of our world and society. If we stick to just the American society, it would be our voice, our rights, our ability to make change happen. Now we may not have the strongest voice and in our lifetime we may not be able to change anything, but it is still your fight, it is your participation in making the world around us better or at least not worse. It is your fighting chance. and wheather or not you are willing to give up that last final tiny voice that may never get heard, for a bigger part of the action, but it may not be on what you agree with. and you are letting other people tell you what to believe in and what to accept as truth. So, will you give up your beliefs and convictions just for an easy buck or a quick fix? or as so wonderfuly put, would 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,
   
   -I believe this goes more towards the romance scene as opposed to the fight for your right to live happily scene. There is someone out there that everyone wishes would be able to be with them, that is love, the most powerful and pure of human emotion. love is not the problem. Its living your life with that of another and trying to live in harmony. of course there will be fights. but in this lover's case, they and their significant other seem to have many disagreements but the power of love overcomes that, and no matter how many times they get together and end things, they just seem to be meant for each other but have a hard time just being with each other. Swimming through their fishbowl or world just drifting away from the other, but no matter how far they drift, they always end up running into each other.
   
   Running over the same old ground.
   What have you found? The same old fears.
   Wish you were here.
   
   -Final line. again with the relationship views. no matter how many times you argue with your partner over a subject, there are just certain issues that you keep fighting about causing you to be angry and possibly leave the other for. and when the relationship is rekindled, it is put out over the same issue. eventually. and both people realize they are getting no where with it and are incapable of maturing on the subject enough to reach an agreeable point so neither will attempt to fix the situation and are stuck with their same old fears.
3. anonymous

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   Sep 26th 2009 !⃝

   The whole album of wish you were here is about syd barret, out of all of them, shine on you crazy diamond relates the most directly out of all the songs on the album, it metaphorically explains actual happenings, but wish you were here is probably about the void they feel without syd in the band, being able to create music with them
   
   so, so you think you can tell
   (its almost questioning the listener, remarking on the fact that most people are blind to important things happening around them, but also relates to syds mental absence as a result of substance abuse)
   heaven from hell(the literal meaning of being numb to deep emotion when your an addict, and the world being a kind of purgatory by way of different events, quite literally between heaven and hell)
   blue skies from pain
   (same principle, but softer concepts as opposed to heaven and hell, showing the broad landscape of human emotion and the mind, and the implications of losing that)
   can you tell a green field, from a cold steel rail, a smile from a veil, do you think you can tell
   (again, similiar concepts but drastically different to show the effects of being almost braindead, also that the effects of a drug or something persuasive can mask the truth, then reiterating the question, do you think you can tell?)
   did they get you to trade, your heroes for ghosts
   (superficial things and material items, pushing your friends away, leaving you alone)
   hot ashes for trees, hot air for a cool breeze
   (the act of smoking a drug renndering you oblivious to smoke and harshness,being somewhere that's seemingly better)
   cold comfort for change,did you exchange a walk on part in the war, for the lead role in the cage
   (being torn from a well known existence and being in unfamiliar territory,so to speak,and sacrificing your free will to an addiction that puts your mind 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 ground, what have we found, the same old fears, wish you were here
   (they wish syd was still with us, even though he was still alive at the time,but he was lost to mental illness, david and syd shared such a kinship, they were like kindred souls, but when they lost syd to addiction, it was like the souls had nowhere to go, running over the same old ground.running into the same obstacles, because they're like a machine that's missing a wheel, which also applies to the songs ,"welcome to the machine"and "the new machine"parts 1-2.)
4. vgarda

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   Aug 19th 2009 !⃝

   I think the song is about about a guy asking to himself all those questions, and when he says ¨Whish you were here¨he he is saying that he misses his younger self when he was more opened minded, and thought that people really needed to change but when he turns old he is just like any of the other adults.
5. lost_at_sea

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   Jul 12th 2009 !⃝

   Ok so this is probably not how most people veiw this song but here it goes. my mom was a huge hippie and a free spirit. and in this song its like I'm talkin to her and and tellin her how much i'v turned out like her "we're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl year after year.......... and how we found the same old fear wish you were here" RIP mom. we r both these two lost and confused souls just trying to find our way and I wish she was here
6. Catnipman

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   Jun 24th 2009 !⃝

   This song has always made me think of a man whos best friend is going to war. Heaven from Hell refers to the friend knowing if what he is doing is good or bad. Blue skies from pain refers to the fact that the friend is always in pain, even when looking at the calming blue sky. Green field from a steel rail could have a lot of interpretations but I take it as just that. Soldiers spend a lot of time traveling making things like a train they are traveling on no different to them than the green fields that they watch. Or it could be talking about where they fight and how weather it be in a field or in the middle of a city, it makes no difference. Smile through a veil would then refer to if he really know if what he is fighting is bad, and how he know who the real bad guys are. Trading heroes for ghosts refers to watching his friends die around him. Hot air for the cool breeze and cold comfort for change refers to the living conditions of the soldier and how they gave up comfort to live in harsh conditions. Walk on part of the war for a lead role in a cage pretty much states what I have been saying. The soldier is in a war and is a prisoner now, living in the bad conditions, watching his friends die, and so on.
   
   The whole wish you were here part is talking about how he wishes his friend would come back from the war.
   
   Two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl year after year, Running over the same old ground, What have you found, the same old fears? This refers to how they both friends felt lost in their lives, that's why the one friend became a soldier, but when he finally got out their he realized that even as a soldier he is still as lost as ever.
7. Intangir

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   Feb 13th 2009 !⃝

   i interpret it as a metaphor for cowardism and giving up the bigger fight for whats more important
   
   especially the line about 'did you exchange a walkon part in the war, for a lead role in a cage'
   
   so many cowards when confronted with a battle they think would be too much work to win cave in and instead join that evil.
   
   just look at politics.. nothing but a group of traitors and cowards who rather than stand up for the people have joined it for power and wealth
   
   
8. anonymous

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   Feb 12th 2009 !⃝

   Lots of the alternate interpretations make sense to me too, but I'm pretty sure the song is about the band dealing with the aftermath of Syd's psychosis. This song makes me really sad.
   
   The first part is the band asking Syd if he's still completely gone. All of these opposite ideas, 'So, so you think you can tell heaven from hell, blue sky's from pain?' In other words asking if he has any sense of reality.
   
   The second part, I think, Is about treatment and the loss of identity following a psychotic break. 'And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts....and did you exchange a walk on part in a war, to a lead role in a cage?' In other words did 'they' have you give up who you were, and all that was good about you for this new identity as someone who is ill and must constantly be managed.
   
   The third part is about the band dealing with there loss. That's what i think anyway...
9. anonymous

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   Jan 5th 2009 !⃝

   When you get fame, fortune, success, money, and anything else that a platinium monster grabs, you start to losing the right sense of konowing who you really are. And them...you begin to miss the old days, when the thing were more simple...
   
   "How I wish you were here" is said to Waters and Gilmour for themselves. You can understand the whole meaning of the Album just looking for the picture on the flip side of the cover...the man walking in the desert, holding a platinium record, empty, just using the superficial clothes..
   
   Alan Ianke: alanianke@ibest.com.br, Brazil.
10. geckogirl63

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    Dec 25th 2008 !⃝

    This is not only one of my favorite Pink Floyd songs but also makes my desert island list (as in what would you listen to if you were stranded on a dessert island and could only take # of songs).
    
    I also do not claim to be a Pink Floyd expert but I have my own idea of what this song is about. Taking into account that the song was released in 1975 and the fact that we were ending Vietnam, I think that the song is about loss. Not just loss from the persepctive of war although their are definately references to that but loss period. With their history from loss in previous wars, I think it is a commentary on War, loss from war, loss of innocence in life
    (which could include losing Syd because anyone who has been around someone who is clinically insane understand impotence and loss). I think it also comments on the perspective of avoiding the war to be "stars" and how that turned into it's own private war. Pink Floyd has always been anti-establishment and have never been shy of saying it, even in their solo careers.
    
    I really don't care if you agree with me or not. I will go right on believing what I want, it is part of the magic of music, it all means something different to all of us.
    
    Peace Out!
11. vagelitsa

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    Dec 7th 2008 !⃝

    i think that this song refers to the problems of the society(can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?)
    and loss of freedom...(We're just two lost souls Swimming in a fish bowl)
12. anonymous

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    Nov 25th 2008 !⃝

    Having recently rediscovered the music of Pink Floyd after 35 years (I bought, and enjoyed immensely, Atom Heart Mother when it came out in 1970, and then drifted away) I’m interested in this song because it seems to me to be a lament for the lost idealism of youth.
    
    I see it as contrasting the resigned cynicism of the singer, who has become world-weary and beaten down by the way the world is, with his younger self. He can no longer tell right from wrong (“heaven from hell”) or good from bad (“blue skies from pain”). He has lost sight of the value of natural beauty and has accepted materialism (“a green field from a cold steel rail”); he has lost the passion for fighting the injustices his younger self saw in the world, like the destruction of the natural environment (“hot ashes for trees”); he has experienced so much bullshit and duplicity(and particularly in the music business – see Welcome to the Machine and Have a Cigar which precede this song on the album)(“a smile from a veil” and “hot air for a cool breeze”); his idealistic dreams have deserted him (“heroes for ghosts”) and he now accepts the status quo, unsatisfactory though it is, rather than trying to change the world (“cold comfort for change”). His younger self had a big ambition to change the world for the better (“a walk-on part in the war”): his older self is only concerned with what has become his own little part of the world, in which he is the main figure (“a lead role in a cage”).
    
    The older man yearns for what can never be regained – the idealism of his youth (“wish you were here”). However, he and his younger self are united by insecurity and their inability to make the world the place they would want it to be (“What have you found? The same old fears”) and, for different reasons, are effectively powerless to control their environment (“two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl”).
13. jumbomingus

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    Oct 7th 2008 !⃝

    "walk on part in a war": Rogers talks about a guy with just such a part in The Wall - the father who dies at Anzio for nothing. And According to Wiki, Waters' own father died at Anzio... Perhaps he is contrasting his own life with that of his father in this line?
    
    I get a heavy feeling about the gradual destruction of the Earth's ecology in the first half of the song.
    
    As for the S.B. arguments, I remember seeing a documentary where a long-haired Gilmore swears up and down that the band doesn't do drugs. (Maybe Zappa made it cool?) Just trying to say that maybe they aren't always candid or honest --- or even "there" at all....
14. mensoelrey

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    Oct 2nd 2008 !⃝

    I agree with Anon 2006-10-11 01:15:26. Waters probably had someone in mind when he wrote the song, it's just got so much heart to be otherwise. But it is a song about missing someone. I have heard it described as a love song but for me it has always been about long lost friends. The true meaning of the song is in the words "how I wish you were here."
15. griff333

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    Sep 8th 2008 !⃝

    The last time I hear this song was just a bit ago, and I was listing to it when I was looking on this website and that's when it hit me, I think when pink floyd came up with song there was no meaning, in other words everyone is right when they think what the song means. The first words are "so you think you can tell" no website, no person, no machine is wrong when they think of a meaning of a song, its what and how you listen to a song, (that may also include what your on)
    
    but enjoy pink floyd shine on you crazy diamond was the first song I had ever heard on the way home from the hospital when I was just a baby.
    
    live, love, laugh
    PEACE

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