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Pink Floyd has re-formed and released a brand new song in support of Ukraine

Pink Floyd, which hasn’t done properly Floyd-ish for years (I’m going with The Division Bell from 1994 and discounting the odds’n’ends The Endless River from 2014), has reunited–sans Roger Waters, of course, but we’ll get to that–and released a brand-new song to support the people of Ukraine.

This was never supposed to happen because Pink Floyd is defunct, right? But when David Gilmour saw this singer, a guy named Andriy Khlyvnyuk on Instagram in his military uniform, he thought he needed to respond.

The song is “Oh, the Red Viburnum in the Meadow,” a song popular during Ukraine’s 1914 war of independence. I quote Gilmour from The Guardian:

“I thought: that is pretty magical and maybe I can do something with this,” says Gilmour. “I’ve got a big platform that [Pink Floyd] have worked on for all these years. It’s a really difficult and frustrating thing to see this extraordinarily crazy, unjust attack by a major power on an independent, peaceful, democratic nation. The frustration of seeing that and thinking ‘what the fuck can I do?’ is sort of unbearable.”

Gilmour called up drummer Nick Mason along with Nitin Sawhney and Guy Pratt to create this brand new Floyd song that samples that soldier standing in downtown Kyiv. It was released today (April 8) with all proceeds going to Ukrainian humanitarian relief.

There’s no Roger Waters involvement. Again, I quote from The Guardian:

“A week before Russia invaded Ukraine, Waters told an interviewer on Russia Today that talk of a Russian invasion was ‘bullshit … anybody with an IQ above room temperature knows [an invasion] is nonsense’; he has subsequently condemned the invasion calling it ‘the act of a gangster,’ while also condemning ‘propaganda to demonise Russia.’ It’s a subject on which Gilmour won’t be drawn. ‘Let’s just say I was disappointed and let’s move on. Read into that what you will.’

Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

Alan Cross has 39188 posts and counting. See all posts by Alan Cross

One thought on “Pink Floyd has re-formed and released a brand new song in support of Ukraine

  • THANKYOU, TOO MUCH ! good version, right balance of ‘echo’. Great playing by all/singing.
    May the $ proceeds, helpout with ‘recovery ‘ of all involved, in this innocent slaughter.
    SLAVA UKRAINE and Mr Zelensky and ALL HIS CLOSE STAFF : Prayers to GOD for protection/health and above all ; ” peace in our time ” to continue the traditional UKRAINE.

    Reply

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