Pink Floyd: 

David Gilmour (vocals, guitar)
Richard Wright (vocals, keyboards, VCS3 syntheszier)
Roger Waters (vocals, bass)
Nick Mason (drums)

Additional personnel: 

Roy Harper (vocals)
Dick Parry (saxophone)

The Dark Side of the Moon had proved to be a phenomenal success, bringing Pink Floyd into the public spotlight, and the band members were worried about how they could ever follow up such
a record.

After a brief flirtation with recording an album without using musical instruments, the Band
began honing three extended songs by playing them live over the subsequent two years after Dark Side: "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", "You Gotta Be Crazy" and "Raving and Drooling".

In the process, however, "Shine On" became too long to fit on a single side of a vinyl album and at the behest of Waters the band split it into two halves, composing new material to fit between them.

Waters convinced the band to temporarily drop the other songs (a decision that guitarist David Gilmour fought against), which later became, respectively, "Dogs" and "Sheep" on the Animals album.

Waters' newer compositions documented the band's current condition (with the lyrics of the title track "Wish You Were Here" alluding to their boredom and frustration with music) and caricatured the negative aspects of the record business (on "Welcome to the Machine" and "Have a Cigar").

Wish You Were Here was Pink Floyd's first album with Columbia Records, their new label for the rest of the world (in Europe they remained with EMI), which they signed with in 1973 for a reported $1 million after the success of The Dark Side of the Moon.

This change in labels stemmed from the band's dissatisfaction with Capitol Records, who had under-promoted the band in America prior to Dark Side.

The deal with Columbia (and later CBS Records/Sony Records) gave the band complete artistic control and also ownership of their own compositions and albums from this point forward would be copyrighted to the band.

The crafting of the album saw tensions rise within the band.

Wish You Were Here would be the last Pink Floyd album to see a writing credit for keyboardist Richard Wright until The Division Bell in 1994, and essentially the last Pink Floyd album where the whole band actively contributed to the process of creation; hereafter Roger Waters was to strengthen his grip on the band's output, writing the bulk of their material.

Despite these difficulties, band members Gilmour and Wright confirmed on the radio show In the Studio with Redbeard that Wish You Were Here remains their favorite Pink Floyd album.