Pink Floyd to release first new music in 28 years in support of Ukraine
By Max Foster and Mia Alberti, CNN
Legendary rock band Pink Floyd is releasing a new single “Hey Hey Rise Up” on Friday in support of the people of Ukraine, the band said in a statement on Thursday.
It’s the first new music from the band since 1994, and all proceeds will go to Ukrainian humanitarian relief, the statement added.
The song is performed by guitarist David Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason, with bass player Guy Pratt and Nitin Sawhney on keyboard, according to the statement.
The song features vocals by Andriy Khlyvnyuk from the Ukrainian band Boombox. The band used audio of Khlyvnyuk singing in central Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, where he performed “a rousing Ukrainian protest song written during the first world war which has been taken up across the world over the past month in protest” against the Russian invasion.
Gilmour, who has a Ukrainian daughter-in-law and grandchildren, said in the statement that he felt moved by Khlyvnyuk’s performance “in a square in Kyiv with this beautiful gold-domed church and … in the silence of a city with no traffic or background noise because of the war.”
“It was a powerful moment that made me want to put it to music,” he said.
Pink Floyd said the Ukrainian singer, who left his band to join the army, is in the hospital after being hit by shrapnel.
“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,” Gimour said.
“We want to express 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.”
The artwork for the single features a painting of a sunflower, Ukraine’s national flower, a “direct reference” to the elderly woman who was seen giving sunflower seeds to Russian soldiers, the band said.
“Hey Hey Rise Up” is the first original music from the band in 28 years. In 2014, the band released an album “The Endless River,” which was mainly ambient and instrumental music based on the 1994 sessions created during “The Division Bell.”
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.
