Pink Floyd is releasing their first track of brand new material since 1994’s The Division Bell with proceeds benefiting the United Nations’ Ukrainian Humanitarian Fund.
The band announced this news in a joint statement shared to their social media channels saying, “Tonight at midnight, Pink Floyd will release ‘Hey, Hey, Rise Up’, in support of the people of Ukraine. It sees David Gilmour and Nick Mason joined by long-time Pink Floyd bass player Guy Pratt and Nitin Sawhney on keyboards, all accompanying an extraordinary vocal by Andriy Khlyvnyuk of Ukrainian band Boombox.”
This is the first brand new song from Pink Floyd in 28 years. The band’s 2014 studio album The Endless River was made up of material recorded during the sessions for The Division Bell.
The statement continues, “The track, recorded last Wednesday (30th March), uses Andriy’s vocals taken from his Instagram post of him in Kyiv’s Sofiyskaya Square singing ‘Oh, The Red Viburnum In The Meadow’, a rousing Ukrainian folk protest song written during the first world war. The title of the Pink Floyd track is taken from the last line of the song which translates as ‘Hey, hey, rise up and rejoice’.”
Khlyvnyuk is one of many Ukrainians who have taken up arms to defend the country from Russia’s invading forces. The joint statement notes Khlyvnyuk was in the hospital at the time of the song’s recording “recovering from a mortar shrapnel injury.” David Gilmore reached out to Khlyvnyuk personally and said in his own statement, “I played him a little bit of the song down the phone line and he gave me his blessing. I hope that we do something together in person at some point in the future.”
This band’s joint statement would go on to note that Gilmour’s daughter-in-law and grandchildren are of Ukrainian descent with Gilmour adding in his own statement, “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…I hope [this song] will receive wide support and publicity. We want to raise funds and morale. We want to show our support for Ukraine and in that way, show that most of the world thinks that it is totally wrong for a superpower to invade the independent democratic country that Ukraine has become.”
“Hey, Hey, Rise Up” is currently available for pre-save here.
