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PINK FLOYD acquired the band again collectively for a united trigger: the continuing war in Ukraine.
The English rock legends launched Hey Hey Rise Up on Thursday, their first single in 28 years, which reunites founding member and drummer Nick Mason with guitarist David Gilmour, longtime Pink Floyd collaborator and bassist Guy Pratt and keyboardist Nitin Sawhney.
All proceeds will go to humanitarian aid in Ukraine.
“We, like so many, have been feeling the fury and the frustration of this vile act of an independent, peaceful democratic country being invaded and having its people murdered by one of the world’s major powers,“ said Gilmour.
The 76-year-old has a Ukrainian daughter-in-law and grandchildren, in a statement.
The track features vocals from Andriy Khlyvnyuk of Ukrainian band Boombox, taken from a recent Instagram video of him singing Ukrainian protest song Oh, the Red Viburnum in the Meadow in Kyiv’s Sofiyskaya Square.
The title of the Pink Floyd song comes from the last line, which translates to “hey hey rise up and rejoice.”
Gilmour found the video after Boombox backed him at a 2015 present in London.
Most not too long ago, Khlyvnyuk left Boombox’s U.S. tour and returned to Ukraine, the place he is joined the Territorial Defense Forces and is at the moment recovering from a shrapnel damage.
“Then I saw this incredible video on Instagram, where he stands in a square in Kyiv with this beautiful gold-domed church and sings in the silence of a city with no traffic or background noise because of the war,“ Gilmour recalled.
“It was a powerful moment that made me want to put it to music.”
Gilmour has since spoken Khlyvnyuk over telephone from his Kyiv hospital mattress.
“I performed him a bit of little bit of the song down the telephone line and he gave me his blessing,“ he mentioned.
Pink Floyd beforehand introduced that they had been eradicating all of their music since 1987, in addition to all of Gilmour’s solo recordings, from digital music suppliers in Russia and Belarus.
