Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here (double album)

With Pink Floyd's massive fame following the release and success of Dark Side of the Moon, the band wasn't sure how to follow it up. One idea was to use everyday items around the home as instruments. The working title of the album was Household Objects. After a few weeks of banging on pots and pans and strumming rubber bands, the group gave up on the idea. 

In addition, Pink Floyd had been working on and performing two songs while on tour in 1974: "You've Got to Be Crazy" and "Raving and Drooling." Interestingly, neither one ended up on the subsequent album Wish You Were Here. Instead, both songs were reworked as "Dogs" and "Sheep" respectively for the band's 1977 album Animals.

I thought it might be interesting to combine what was released in 1975 along with other music the band was working on to expand Wish You Were Here into a double album. For this project, I've combined tracks of the actual Wish You Were Here with music the band had produced for this and other projects.

SIDE A
1. Shine on You Crazy Diamond, Parts I-V - 13:32 
2. Welcome to the Machine - 7:32

SIDE B
1. The Hard Way - 2:46
2. You've Got to be Crazy [live] - 18:13

SIDE C

1. Have a Cigar [alt] - 7:12

2. Raving and Drooling [live] - 14:30

SIDE D

1. The Travel Sequence - 2:21

2. Wish You Were Here [alt] - 6:14

3. Shine on You Crazy Diamond, Parts VI-IX - 12:30

I was a little leery at first of mixing studio and live tracks, but it's certainly something Pink Floyd has done before. But with the inclusion of new tracks, some rearranging was necessary to make the length of each album side relatively the same.

We open and close the album the same way: with "Shine on You Crazy Diamond." In fact, the first side remains exactly the same, with the inclusion of the track "Welcome to the Machine." 

For Side B, it opens with the instrumental "The Hard Way," a leftover from Household Objects. The only other known music from that aborted album is "Wine Glasses," which the band incorporated into "Shine on You Crazy Diamond." So there was no need to add it as well. The side closes with "You've Got to be Crazy," recorded live at Wembley Stadium.

Side C opens with a longer, alternate version of "Have a Cigar" that features vocals from Roger Waters and David Gilmour instead of Roy Harper. The next track is the live "Raving and Drooling," also recorded at Wembley Stadium. 

Side D starts with the instrumental "The Travel Sequence," which is actually an outtake from Dark Side of the Moon. That is followed by the album's title track. I used an alternate version, which is longer and features the prominent playing of Stephane Grappelli on violin. And as stated earlier, the album closes with the rest of "Shine on You Crazy Diamond."

All of these tracks, including the live ones, can be found on the box set Why Pink Floyd...? The cover art was actually originally designed by Hipgnosis for Wish You Were Here but was rejected by the band.

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NOTE: Since publishing this post, I've discovered that studio demos recorded for "You've Got to be Crazy" and "Raving and Drooling" are available on a bootleg called The Extraction Tapes. So, if you don't want live tracks mixed with studio ones, you could sub those.