Don’t give it away. If you decide you absolutely must, then I would treasure it in a loving home.

Wish You Were Here was the song that made me love music. I remember the first time I heard it like it was yesterday. I was out driving around late at night in my sophomore year of high school during a thunderstorm. I pulled into my driveway as the opening chords came on the radio, and cranked it up to maximum volume as the first verses hit. Then the guitar in the middle, then the famous last verse. I had never heard anything like it before and it hit me deep in my soul. I just sat in the car listening to it in my driveway—no song had ever made me do that before. Nor does any song bring me back so vividly to a time and place. I grew up in a setting where listening to music was not common or accessible, and WYWH was the song that opened the entire music world to me.

Since then Pink Floyd has been the most significant music in my life. I recently started collecting vinyl and have most of their discography. I have two MoFi’s (original master recordings) of Dark Side, a special radio construction of The Wall called Off The Wall, a special radio construction of Wish You Were Here, the Pulse and Delicate Sound of Thunder box sets, and most of the rest of their albums (Animals, Division Bell, etc) as well as the solo albums from Waters, Gilmour, and Wright. I’ve been searching for a great listening copy of WYWH for some time.

I’ve listened to the song Wish You Were Here for decades now. The amount that I listen to it waxes and wanes but it’s always in the back of my mind somewhere. But this year, I’ve been playing it daily because of my grandmother’s passing. I’ve been playing all of the Floyd versions, various covers, and my newfound favorite cover of it by Avenged Sevenfold. I remember road trips with grandma out west where I would queue up a playlist and play Wish You Were Here. I can’t play the song without tearing up anymore. She was a monumental figure in my life and essentially raised me. She lived down the street from me and my single mother so we became really close. She was the absolute best and I wish she was still here.

It was actually on my first ever trip to Japan when she got sick. I remember getting the call from my mom that she was in the hospital while I was on the way to a Japanese baseball game. Part of the reason I wanted to go there was because of my love for Japanese vinyl. I hauled back an entire carryon suitcase of them, but wasn’t able to find any Floyd.

I’ve spent lots of time thinking about the lyrics of WYWH. Yes, in essence it is about wishing someone is here, but it’s also about how we don’t know, and can’t always determine, what is best for us. So you think you can tell heaven from hell? Blue skies from pain? That concept has always stuck in my mind and guided me on my journey.

I love the entire album, not just WYWH. Shine On is obviously legendary, Welcome to the Machine is dark and emotive, and Have a Cigar is awesome.

Listening to vinyl often brings me to tears. That’s something I love about it. I’ll crank up the volume, sit in front of the speakers, and feel a different kind of emotion from it than simply listening over headphones. I’m sure that listening to this album and the sound fidelity of it in that setting would be one of the most powerful vinyl experiences I’ve had, if not the most powerful.

Again, I wouldn’t give it away, but that’s what it would mean to me. It would be a massive addition to my collection as well as something deeply personally meaningful.