“It’s our best album”: the only Pink Floyd record Richard Wright could revisit
As a founding member of Pink Floyd, Richard Wright had his own thoughts on the group’s trajectory, from their days as scrappy upstarts with multiple names to the decline of Syd Barrett and the cerebral pinnacle of their career in the 1970s. Although he would have disagreements with his former bandmates, like them, he knew when things started to head south.
It might seem astounding to the outside world, but the band’s former creative director and overlord, Roger Waters, claimed that the end of Pink Floyd was nigh after the unimaginable success of 1973’s The Dark Side of the Moon. It “finished” the band, he claimed.
After former leader Syd Barrett’s alarming mental and physical decline, Waters assumed the role of executive as no one else wanted to step up to the plate. As Barrett had a distinctive approach and sound, it would take the new-look Floyd – featuring replacement guitarist David Gilmour – considerable time to navigate the shift in the lineup and conceive a new sound that captured both their individual talent and collective potency. The transition from one decade to another was shaky, producing highlights and embarrassments, but by the time the group wrote ‘Echoes’ from 1971’s Meddle, they began to find their long-searched-for essence.
Obscured by Clouds was released in 1972, and the following year, Pink Floyd achieved their greatest commercial and critical success with The Dark Side of the Moon. This album stands as a pinnacle of the concept album genre, as the band refined their sound into something truly profound. It also marked a turning point for Roger Waters as a songwriter, with his lyrics addressing themes of ageing, fame, and mental health in a way that resonated with the masses far more than his previous work. Waters later claimed that this 1973 record signified the beginning of the end for Pink Floyd, as nothing they would create afterwards could compare to the peak they had reached with The Dark Side of the Moon.
It’s a cynical perspective, but such is Waters’ nature. In truth, the band still had several masterpieces left to release before his acrimonious departure. Moreover, many fans, if they don’t consider The Dark Side of the Moon to be Pink Floyd’s finest work, often regard its successor, 1975’s Wish You Were Here, as their best. Influenced even more by Syd Barrett’s mental health struggles and the theme of absence due to his psychological decline, the album carries a profound collective significance for the band members—a rare topic they all seem to agree on.
During a 2001 interview with director John Edginton for his documentary The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett Story, Wright explained why he thought Wish You Were Here was “our best album” and the only one by the band he could revisit. Reflecting on Barrett’s impact on Waters’s lyrics and tracks such as ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’, he said categorically, “I think it’s our best album, personally, I love it.”
The keyboardist explained why: “I love it lyrically, but I also love it just musically, and I love the flow of it, and I just think… I mean, I will listen to that album for pleasure, there’s not many of the Floyd albums I can, but that one.”
Examining the centrepiece of ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’, he continued: “I dunno, it’s the way it all builds up – that main track – from the wine glasses to the saxophone, to the quiet bit, the little bit of guitar, and all that, and then into the really interesting sequence of chords for the song. I just think it’s a great piece.”
Wish You Were Here was also significant for Wright because it was for him, the final album where the band gelled together before it started fragmenting beyond repair. Referring to Waters stating that the lyrics were as inspired by the grief of Barrett’s experience as the realisation that the end was nigh for the quartet, he agreed. “In a sense, that’s true,” he concluded. “It’s this thing of not being there, and it was the last album where we worked well together.”
