Tonight at midnight, Pink Floyd will release "Hey Hey Rise Up" - their first newly created music since 1994’s The Division Bell - 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.
All proceeds go to Ukrainian Humanitarian Relief. Listen / download here.
The track, recorded last Wednesday (March 30), 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’.
The video for "Hey Hey Rise Up" was filmed by acclaimed director Mat Whitecross and shot on the same day as the track was recorded, with Andriy singing on the screen while the band played.
Gilmour, who has a Ukrainian daughter-in-law and grandchildren says: “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."
Gilmour explains how he came to know Andriy and his band Boombox. “In 2015, I played a show at Koko in London in support of the Belarus Free Theatre, whose members have been imprisoned. Pussy Riot and the Ukrainian band, Boombox, were also on the bill. They were supposed to do their own set, but their singer Andriy had visa problems, so the rest of the band backed me for my set - we played Wish You Were Here for Andriy that night. Recently I read that Andriy had left his American tour with Boombox, had gone back to Ukraine, and joined up with the Territorial Defense. 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. It was a powerful moment that made me want to put it to music.”
While writing the music for the track, David managed to speak with Andriy from his hospital bed in Kyiv where he was recovering from a mortar shrapnel injury. “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.”
Speaking about his hopes for the track Gilmour says, “I hope it 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."
The artwork for the track features a painting of the national flower of Ukraine, the sunflower, by the Cuban artist, Yosan Leon. The cover of the single is a direct reference to the woman who was seen around the world giving sunflower seeds to Russian soldiers and telling them to carry them in their pockets so that when they die, sunflowers will grow.
(Photo - Pink Floyd / Press)
