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Pink floyd roger waters2/21/2023 ![]() Keyboard player Richard Wright died at age 65 in 2008 and bassist Roger Waters left the band in the mid-1980s over creative disagreements with the other members. Guitarist and vocalist Gilmour and drummer Mason are the two remaining members of the lineup of Pink Floyd which recorded some of the most popular music of the 1970s, including the albums Dark Side of the Moon (1973), Wish You Were Here (1975), Animals (1977) and The Wall (1979). The other band member, 78-year-old Nick Mason, has not made any public statements about the recording or the subject of the war in Ukraine. It helps to create a discontent in that country which will hopefully, at some point, create some sort of change of regime.” The 76-year-old Gilmour then called for regime change in Russia, “It’s a shame that the people who suffer most are the ordinary people of Russia-but that is the way the sanctions work. And we, our brother Ukrainians, we will then liberate, / And we shall cheer up our glorious Ukraine, hey-hey!”Įxplaining his own accommodation to NATO-backed Ukrainian militarism, David Gilmour said, “We want to express our support for Ukraine and, in that way, show that most of the world thinks that it is totally wrong for a superpower to invade the independent democratic country that Ukraine has become.” Gilmour also ignored the imperialist stoking of the war in Ukraine both before and after the Russian invasion, when he told the BBC that he found the “powerlessness of the West” in the face of the Russian aggression “infuriating,” but that he supported the ongoing sanctions against the country. “The Red Viburnum in the Meadow” is a patriotic battle march, whose lyrics include the refrain, “And we, our glorious Ukraine, shall, hey-hey, cheer up-and rejoice!,” and further, “Marching forward, our fellow volunteers, into a bloody fray, / For to free our brother Ukrainians from hostile chains. The reference to the song as a “protest,” with the implication that it was composed as an anti-war protest, is simply dishonest. The description in the Pink Floyd announcement refers to the tune as “a rousing Ukrainian protest song written during the first world war which has been taken up across the world over the past month in protest of the invasion of Ukraine.”īut, in fact, the song was written to honor of the Legion of Ukrainian Sich Riflemen, a Ukrainian unit of the Austro-Hungarian army during World War I composed of members of different Ukrainian paramilitary organizations. ![]() The title of the Pink Floyd track is taken from the last line of a song written by Ukrainian composer Stepan Charnetsky in 1914. Given the association of Pink Floyd, at least until the early 1980s, with generally anti-war and anti-capitalist themes and messages, there are many troubling aspects to the new recording. The new song by what remains of Pink Floyd shows the degree to which many popular musicians have been swept along behind the pro-war propaganda barrage in support of right-wing Ukrainian nationalism and the US-backed NATO provocation against Russia. While opposing the reactionary Russian invasion, Waters recently commented that a “long drawn-out insurgency in Ukraine would be great for the gangster hawks in Washington, it’s what they dream of.” We will return to Waters’ comments below. Meanwhile, on the other hand, original Pink Floyd member Roger Waters (1965-1985) has expressed a far more critical view of the US-NATO operation. However, the track incorporates the vocals from an Instagram post by Khlyvnyuk, who sang the patriotic Ukrainian song, “The Red Viburnum in the Meadow,” in Kiev’s Sofiyskaya Square dressed in paramilitary fatigues and brandishing an assault rifle. The statement explains it was recorded on March 30 and has been released “in support of the people of Ukraine” and to raise funds for humanitarian charities. ![]() The two remaining members of the rock band Pink Floyd, David Gilmour and Nick Mason, have joined with other musicians, including the Ukrainian singer and member of the band BoomBox, Andriy Khlyvnyuk, and released a new song called, “Hey, Hey, Rise Up!”Īccording to a statement on the official Pink Floyd website, this is the first new single by the band since 1994. ![]()
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