# Wish You Were Here... **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 6, 2004, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wish-you-were-here/267921 "2004-10-06T21:24:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![olpeculiar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/34f0e0/32.png) [@olpeculiar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/olpeculiar)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2004, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wish-you-were-here/267921/1 "2004-10-06T21:24:51Z")
Not the most high-brow question I’ve ever pondered, but does anyone know for sure what piece of music is used for the brief orchestra clip at the beginning of Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here”? It just came through the MP3 player, and now I’m curious. Nothing conclusive on Google… ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2004, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wish-you-were-here/267921/2 "2004-10-06T21:41:05Z")
Eh? _Wish You Were Here_ starts off with a gentle liting guitar tune, moving into some slidey, bluegrass-ish guitar, back to more positive strumming, then lyrics. What orchestral music? ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2004, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wish-you-were-here/267921/3 "2004-10-06T21:54:33Z")
I think he means the start of the “Wish You Were Here” album, i.e., the start of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.” I’m 99% sure that it’s actually Rick Wright on his A.R.P Solina IV Synthesizer, which sounded like a whole string orchestra. ---
**Author:** ![Elvez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8491ac/32.png) [@Elvez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elvez)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2004, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wish-you-were-here/267921/4 "2004-10-06T22:14:03Z")
Are you referring to the music that’s right after the two mumbling voices?: _sound of changing radio or tv channels mumblemumble…diciplinary remains mercifully(?)…mumble yes yes and with you? mumble yes yes Mumble and which is it? mumble I’m sure of it."_ dada la dada la dun dun dum! _guitar intro_ In any case, I don’t know where the dada la dada la dun dun dum! is from… ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Niceguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mr.Niceguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Niceguy)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2004, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wish-you-were-here/267921/5 "2004-10-06T23:45:44Z")
The tune “Cigar” fades slowly away until it sounds as if it were playing through a transistor radio and then come the opening chords of “Wish You Were Here”. Is that what you are hearing ? ---
**Author:** ![olpeculiar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/34f0e0/32.png) [@olpeculiar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/olpeculiar)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2004, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wish-you-were-here/267921/6 "2004-10-06T23:47:00Z")
Yes, Elvez has it. It is the “dada la dada la dun dun dum!” as the radio is changing stations just before the lilting guitar. I’m not quite a hardcore Pink Floyd head - and I’m wondering if anyone is such a fan that they actually know what that music is. Maybe it’s from The Wizard of Oz… ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2004, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wish-you-were-here/267921/7 "2004-10-06T23:51:40Z")
There is a very brief snippet of classical orchestral music heard on the radio immediately before the guitar starts playing the “Wish You Were Here” tune. It comes from the fourth movement of the [Symphony number 4 in F Minor, Op. 36, by Piotr Ilich Tchaikovsky.](http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/tchaikovsky_sym4.html) ---
**Author:** ![olpeculiar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/34f0e0/32.png) [@olpeculiar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/olpeculiar)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2004, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wish-you-were-here/267921/8 "2004-10-07T00:02:16Z")
Jomo - The link you’ve provided sounds like it might be it (about 4 or 5 seconds into the link’s sound bite). I’ll be scouring my classical CDs for another version that sounds more on the nose… How did you come across this? Did you just figure it out, or did you run into Nick Mason and Richard Wright one day and just decided to ask? Or - are you Richard Wright??!!! ---
**Author:** ![olpeculiar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/34f0e0/32.png) [@olpeculiar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/olpeculiar)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2004, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wish-you-were-here/267921/9 "2004-10-07T00:11:53Z")
Well, armed with the Tchaikovsky info, I see that numerous web sites back that up. M’kay - thanks… ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2004, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wish-you-were-here/267921/10 "2004-10-07T01:03:11Z")
How did I know? I had been a classical music fan from an early age. I had bought a lot of classical music records, and Tchaikovsky’s Fourth happened to be one of them. So the first time I heard “Wish You Were Here,” I recognized the familiar melody right away. That’s all there was to it — no googling involved. This was about 20 years before Google was even invented. ---
**Author:** ![Yeticus\_Rex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a698b9/32.png) [@Yeticus\_Rex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yeticus_Rex)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2004, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wish-you-were-here/267921/11 "2004-10-07T01:27:25Z")
I can also recall that soundbite being the background music to a chase scene in a Bugs Bunny cartoon (which one you ask? I don’t remember), which would be the link (the cartoon) representing a channel on a TV with all of the other soundbites strung together to make it sound like a person is flipping channels (typical Roger Waters) before landing on the “channel” were David Gilmore starts the song on his guitar. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2004, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wish-you-were-here/267921/12 "2004-10-07T02:16:39Z")
Reasonable but the fade-in and fade-out “mmmvvvff” between stations, plus the tinny sound (with the slightly-out-of-frequency squeal) of the opening strains of “Wish You Were Here”, makes it more compelling that it was supposed to be the tuning of a transistor radio, not a TV. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2004, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wish-you-were-here/267921/13 "2004-10-07T03:16:04Z")
You’re right about the radio tuning. They made it sound as though someone was turning a radio dial and picking up random disjointed bits from stations. Then the dial turns to a station playing **Pink Floyd**! Ah, now there’s something worth listening to! Stop turning the dial! At first the song sounds like it’s coming out of a little radio (like a transistor, as **AHunter3** said). Eventually it opens up into the full spectrum sound. When the Floyd played “Wish You Were Here” in concert, they took an actual radio and turned the dial to pick up random bits of broadcasts from the local stations wherever they were performing, before starting the song. This idea was first used by the composer John Cage, who scored music for ensembles of radios by specifying the frequency they were to be tuned to, and duration for each frequency. True aleatoric chance happenings, never the same twice. ---
**Author:** ![xash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c6cbf5/32.png) [@xash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xash)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2004, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wish-you-were-here/267921/14 "2004-10-07T18:39:22Z")
Moved to CS. - **xash** General Questions Moderator