“There was a sense of humour. We were taken very seriously by the world at large, but there was always an edge of fun”: The grimness of Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here may have been overstated

Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here album cover.

Marking the 40th anniversary of Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here in 2015, Prog looked back on the history of an album that remains popular among lifelong fans and new followers – and may have been far less a negative experience for the band than many have come to believe.

Released in September 1975, Pink Floyd's ninth album, Wish You Were Here, remains one of their most loved works, and sounds as contemporary now as then. But its torturous gestation, recorded in increasingly indolent sessions at Abbey Road across half a year, almost broke the band apart. As Roger Waters said in 1999, “The whole thing had fallen to pieces.”