Pink Floyd on Friday released a new single, "Hey Hey Rise Up," featuring vocals by Ukrainian singer Andriy Khlyvnyuk and guitar solos by David Gilmour. Drummer Nick Mason, bass player Guy Pratt, and keyboardist Nitin Sawhney also perform on the song, Pink Floyd's first new music since 1994's Division Bell. (Roger Waters, who split from the band in 1985, did not participate.)
Gilmour, whose daughter-in-law is Ukrainian, said he was inspired to record the song after watching Khlyvnyuk sing the World War I protest song "The Red Viburnum In The Meadow" in central Kyiv, in a video posted to Instagram. Khlyvnyuk, who left a U.S. tour of his band Boombox to take up arms against Russia in Ukraine, is recovering from a shrapnel injury, Gilmour said, and after hearing a snippet of Pink Floyd's single, "he gave me his blessing."
The song's title comes from the protest song's last line, "Hey hey, rise up and rejoice." All proceeds from the single will go to Ukrainian humanitarian relief, Pink Floyd says.
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"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 said in a statement. The video of Khlyvnyuk singing "in the silence of a city with no traffic or background noise because of the war" was "a powerful moment that made me want to put it to music."
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