Shine On You Crazy Diamond


"Shine On You Crazy Diamond" is a nine-part Pink Floyd composition written by David Gilmour, Roger Waters, and Richard Wright. It appeared on Pink Floyd's 1975 concept album Wish You Were Here.

Background

The song was conceived and written as a tribute and remembrance to their former band member Syd Barrett, a founding member of Pink Floyd. Barrett was ousted from the band by the other members in 1968 due to his drug use and troubled mental health, which had affected his ability to integrate with the rest of the band and perform and create as a musician. He was replaced by David Gilmour, Barrett's former school friend who had initially been brought in as second guitar. The remaining band members felt guilty for removing him, but they viewed it as necessary, admiring Barrett's creativity and being concerned about his severe mental decline. The work was first performed on their 1974 French tour and recorded for their 1975 concept album Wish You Were Here. It was intended to be a side-long composition but was split into two sections and used to bookend the album, with new material composed that was more relevant to the album and to the situation in which the band found themselves.

Recording

Bassist Roger Waters commented, as the sessions were underway, that "at times the group was there only physically. Our bodies were there, but our minds and feelings somewhere else." Eventually an idea was raised to split the epic in two, Parts I–V and Parts VI–IX.
According to guitarist David Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason on the Wish You Were Here episode of In the Studio with Redbeard, Pink Floyd recorded a satisfactory take of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" but because of a new mixing console which was installed at Abbey Road Studios, it needed to be re-recorded because excessive 'bleed' from other instruments could be heard on the drum tracks as explained by Gilmour,
On part 3, a piano part seems to have been added "live" to the final mix, making it absent from multitrack masters. That part was re-recorded at British Grove Studios by pianist Richard Wright during the multi-channel mix used for the album Immersion Edition and the SACD release.
Nick Mason said:

Barrett incident

One day during recording, Barrett wandered into the studio. Because of his drastically changed appearance, the band did not recognize him for some time. When they eventually realised that the withdrawn man in the corner was Barrett, Roger Waters became so distressed about Barrett's appearance that he was reduced to tears. Someone asked to play the suite again for Barrett and he said a second playback was not needed when they had just heard it. When asked what he thought of the song, Barrett said it sounded a "bit old". He subsequently slipped away during celebrations for Gilmour's wedding to Ginger Hasenbein, which took place later that day. Gilmour confirmed this story, although he could not recall which composition they were working on when Barrett showed up.
The episode is taken up by Wright as follows:

Live performances

The song series was first performed as "Shine On", during the band's French tour in June 1974. It was introduced as "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" on the British tour in November 1974. The set was originally performed as one whole suite with some of the parts differing from the album versions, and samplings of Barrett's solo song "Dark Globe" during the opening of the performance. The version from the British tour was included on the 2011 Experience and Immersion editions of Wish You Were Here. The multi-part version of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" was first performed on the band's 1975 North American tour with "Have a Cigar" in between the two halves of the piece. The 1975 versions were close to the final versions, except parts one and nine were still not refined yet. The band performed the whole nine-part "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" as part of the Wish You Were Here portion of their 1977 In the Flesh Tour, with extra musicians White on guitar and backing vocals and Parry on saxophones.
Parts I–V became a staple of Floyd's performances from 1987–94. The track opened shows for most of the A Momentary Lapse of Reason tour of 1987–89 and the tour closing performance at Knebworth in 1990 with Candy Dulfer on saxophone. The first eleven performances had "Echoes" as the show opener before the band proceeded to play all of A Momentary Lapse of Reason in the rest of the first half in a slightly different sequence to the album. A condensed edition of the track would then open the second half of the shows on the group's 1994 The Division Bell tour, except in shows where all of The Dark Side of the Moon was performed, in which case "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" opened the first half of the concert. In the last month and a half of the tour, the band added part VII to Parts I–V. A similar version was also played during David Gilmour's Rattle That Lock Tour in 2015 with the according screen film on display.
Gilmour performed almost the whole suite at his 2001 and 2002 semi-unplugged concerts. "There was," he said, "a moment of thinking, 'Shall I attempt an acoustic guitar version of the long, synthesised opening?' It came to me one day how I could do it, and it worked out not too badly."
Gilmour performed parts I–II and IV–V on his 2006 On an Island solo tour. Part III was omitted and Parts I and II were simplified and more guitar-focused. Gilmour performed Parts I–V on his Live in Gdańsk album on disc two and on the DVD in the four-disc edition of the album. The five-disc edition and the online downloads available in the three and four-disc editions include Parts I–V recorded in Venice and Vienne in 2006. In many of his performances, solo and with Pink Floyd, Gilmour alters the vocal melody to avoid the higher notes that were originally sung by Waters.
Waters has also performed the epic on his 1999 and 2000 tours documented on his In the Flesh – Live album and DVD which was a condensed parts I, II, IV, VI, VII, and IX. Part VI on these performances had a lap steel solo from Jon Carin then guitar solos from Doyle Bramhall II and White. Then on Waters' 2002 tour, he played all nine parts like on record. An abridged version of parts I–V was performed on Waters' 2006–07 The Dark Side of the Moon Live tour.

Personnel

with:
Three different edited versions of the composition have appeared on compilation albums:
;A Collection of Great Dance Songs
The version on this compilation album was cut significantly. Parts III, V, VI, VIII and IX were dropped completely. Parts IV and VII are linked by the guitar solo from earlier in Part IV. Lastly, the riff that links Parts VII and VIII is repeated several times as the song segues into the introductory radio passage from "Wish You Were Here".
;
The version on this compilation album was also cut, but less significantly. The guitar solo on Part III was dropped. Part VI was shortened. Parts VIII and IX were dropped completely. Linking Parts V and VI is the sound of wind. These are the same wind effects used to bridge "Wish You Were Here" to Part VI of "Diamond" on the original LP. Finally, the riff that links Parts VII and VIII is repeated several times as the song segues into the introductory passage of clocks of "Time".
;A Foot in the Door – The Best of Pink Floyd
This version was also cut. Parts VI–IX were dropped completely. Part I was shortened. The guitar solo on Part III was dropped. The saxophone on Part V has an early fade-out. Finally, the machine-like hum that segues into "Welcome to the Machine" in the original album was dropped, the song simply stops and "Brain Damage" begins.

Releases

"Shine On You Crazy Diamond" features on all the below releases:
;Albums
;Video/DVD/BD
The original album version featured prominently in the 1976 TV series Sailor, about the aircraft carrier. On the DVD release, it was replaced by a smooth jazz composition.
The same track is used in a joke in the third episode of the radio comedy The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It is heard in the background, and then one of the characters comments that "Marvin can hum just like Pink Floyd". Again, the music was cut from commercial releases.
The extended instrumental introduction was used in the last scenes of Good Morning, Night, a 2003 Italian movie about the 1978 Aldo Moro kidnapping and assassination.
In the Japanese manga JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, the protagonist Josuke Higashikata's Stand is named Crazy Diamond. In the English-language version of the anime adaptation and other official media following its release, the Stand is named Shining Diamond to avoid copyright issues.
In December 2018, the song was the subject of an episode of BBC Radio 4's Soul Music, examining its cultural influence, including an interview with Gilmour about how the song was created.

Cover versions

included a cover of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" on his first solo album, Attention Dimension ; it is 5:12 in length.
Transatlantic has a cover of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" on a limited edition bonus disk with their album Bridge Across Forever ; it is 15:27 in length.
Steve Lukather of Toto performed a cover of the song on the tribute album An All Star Lineup Performing the Songs of Pink Floyd.
Italian prog-rock band Elio e le Storie Tese performed a faithful cover of parts I-III live in 2017, ending it as soon as Elio sings the word "Shine" for the first time, which he turns into "Sciao" – Venetian for "Ciao", i.e. "Hello".
Irish folk singer Christy Moore has a cover of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" on his Listen album, released in 2009 and done as an acoustic guitar ballad. It is 5:07 in length.