This album had my favorite art work of all time. The first band t-shirt I ever bought was a t-shirt with the man shaking hands with the burning man on it. This album is unique to me due to the long periods of instrumental only segments with very few lyrics. Shine on you crazy diamond pays tribute to Syd Barrett, who had burned out years before. Syd even showed up at the recording studio to see if he could do a part in creating the album. It must have been hard to create an album after the success of darkside of the moon, but this album still always ranks very high. It was ranked 209 on the Rolling Stones five hundred greatest albums of all time. The album has a very reflective and nostalgic tone to both the lyrics and the music. The mood of all of the long instrumental pieces sounds very sad to me. In terms of the history of the band this is really the last album in which Roger Waters and David Gilmore seemed to collaborate in the music. With the following albums of Animals each started to derive different niches and by “The Final Cut” Rogers had totally taken over. This album is very much an emotional journey. David Gilmore's guitar solos on wish you were here can defiantly bring tears to my eyes.

Shine on You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V):

Its easy to fall back on the “its about Syd speech but I believe in free interpretation of works. To me the first time I listened to this album in 8th grade, I had not yet heard of the history of the band. The song spoke to me about friends who had moved away and places that were gone. Its really just a universal cry kind of a don't go gentle into the good night song.

Welcome to the Machine:

Most people analyze this as a take on the music business, which I can defiantly see. It can really sum up getting into any kind of corporate type world. “we told you what to dream” like advertisers telling you where you want to go on vacation and what to desire. The machine is society as a whole.

Have a Cigar:

Another take on the business or any business really. “riding the gravy train”

Wish You Were Here:

In my opinion Floyd's most haunting, beautiful, and poetic song. It reminds me of leaving people you met at summer camp and knowing you will never see them again. Or when you hear a joke that only one other person you know would get and they are not there to share with. This song is defiantly in my top favorite five Pink Floyd songs

Shine on You Crazy Diamond (Parts V-IX):

Has a dark foreboding tone to the final piece. It turns momentarily back to the prose from earlier in the album. Then it all kind of symbolically crashes.