“Hey, Hey, Rise-Up!” released on 2022-04-08, is Pink Floyd’s first new song since 1994. It will be used to raise funds for humanitarian causes associated with the warin Ukraine. It samples Andriy Khlyvnyuk, a member of one of Ukraine’s biggest bands, BoomBox, singing in Sofiyskaya Square in Kyiv, in a video clip that went viral.
Khlyvnyukh abandoned a world tour to return to Ukraine and help defend his country. “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,” Pink Floyd said on its official Twitter feed.
In a press release, band leader David Gilmour said he had been moved by Khlyvnyuk’s video: “It was a powerful moment that made me want to put it to music.”
Gillmour spoke with Khlyvnyuk from his hospital bed in Kyiv, where the singer was recovering after being hit by shrapnel in a mortar attack. “I played him a little bit of the song down the phone line and he gave me his blessing. We both hope to do something together in person in the future,” Gilmour said.
The image accompanying the song is a sunflower, and was inspired by a viral video showing a Ukrainian woman insulting two armed Russian soldiers. In it, she tells the soldiers: “Take these seeds and put them in your pockets. That way sunflowers will grow when you all die here.”
Hey, Hey, Rise-Up! is the first original music from Pink Floyd since 1994’s “The Division Bell”.