Rock & roll gods, Pink Floyd have come out of 'retirement' to release their first new song in almost three decades, in support of the people of Ukraine.
'Hey Hey Rise Up' features 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.Andriy was on a US tour with Boombox when Putin's Russian troops invaded Ukraine on 24 February, 2022. He returned home to help defend his country's sovereignty.
The Ukraine-Russian conflict also has a personal connection to Gilmour, whose daughter-in-law and grandchildren are Ukrainian.
"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," Gilmnour says.
Recorded on 30 March, 'Hey Hey Rise Up' incorporates 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'.
"In 2015, I played a show at Koko in London in support of the Belarus Free Theatre, whose members have been imprisoned," adds Gilmour.
"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."
