Wish You Were Here

Incubus lead singer Brandon Boyd said "Wish You Were Here" is "a simple and straightforward ditty about the beauty of a moment in paradise. And the desire to share that moment with someone of like mind."

Before Morning View was recorded, Incubus moved into a house together on Morning View Drive in Malibu (thus the album title) and took weeks to set up their equipment and get settled. Chris Kilmore had plastic turntables that he put all over the house and Mike Einziger played a record called Tahitian Island Music pretty much nonstop.

The phrase "wish you were here" is something you'd see on postcards, which were popular in the days before social media. The idea is that you've found yourself in a wonderful place, but it would be better if that other person was there. Brandon Boyd explained the postcard-perfect story of this song in an interview with Revolver: "We were celebrating the success of the record Make Yourself. We had been on the road for almost two years and the last year and a half of it, things were going better than they've ever gone before - we'd sold a couple million records and were seeing success for the first time. We came home and rented the Morning View house. We all moved into it and put all our gear into the living room. Being gone so much, it made being in relationships really challenging. So, the relationship that I'd been in for a few years, I came home from the tour and started writing right away with the guys, and it just fell apart completely. The Morning View house was right across the beach on PCH [Pacific Coast Highway] in Malibu. We were having this incredible time celebrating the successes we had, but also keeping our heads down writing music. And there was one moment where I walked down to the beach by myself and there was a beautiful moon. It was a super-clear night - winter in California is very beautiful, the air is cleaner, there's less people around - and the moon was reflecting off the water in a really beautiful way. I was excited about the things that were happening in our career and in my life, and I was also in a quasi-depressive state because my relationship with the person that I loved had fallen through and was crumbling. I was sitting on the beach by myself admiring the beauty, and I had this cheesy postcard moment where was like, 'Wow, this is really beautiful, I wish you were here too to celebrate it with me.' But she wasn't. So there was something positive about the song but also sad at the same time."