Pink Floyd have announced that they will release a physical version of their brand new track Hey Hey Rise Up on vinyl and CD, proceeds from which will go towards Ukraine Humanitarian Relief. The single will be available on July 15, excluding Japan where it will be released on August 3 and USA, Canada, Australia and Mexico where it's October 21.
Hey Hey Rise Up was the band's first new original music they've recorded together as a band since 1994’s The Division Bell and alongside David Gilmour and Nick Mason featured long-time Floyd bassist Guy Pratt and keyboard player Sawhney on keyboards, plus vocals from Andriy Khlyvnyuk of Ukrainian band Boombox.. The single, which was initially released digitally in April and was #1 in 27 countries, will be available on 7” and CD single.
“Any war, but particularly a war that is started by a world superpower against an independent democratic nation, has got to raise enormous anger and frustration in one," says David Gilmour. "As I said before, I have a small connection there; my daughter-in-law is from Ukraine. And the band Boombox are Ukrainian people that I already knew, not well, but from some time ago. It’s an enormously difficult, frustrating, and anger-making thing that one human being could have the power to go into another independent democratic nation and set about killing the population. It’s just obscene to an extent that is just beyond my belief.”
Both formats will also feature a newly reworked version of A Great Day For Freedom taken from The Division Bell. David Gilmour has reworked the song using the original tapes which feature Nick Mason on drums and Richard Wright on keyboards, along with backing vocals from Sam Brown, Claudia Fontaine and Durga McBroom.
You can watch the video for Hey Hey Rise Up below.
The new issue of Classic Rock magazine tells the story of the the tour that road-tested Pink Floyd's The Dark Side Of The Moon. It's available to pre-order now.
