Peter Gabriel has released new single Won’t Stand Down, the latest track to appear from his upcoming album o/i.
It’s the Bright-Side Mix of the song and its launch marks the first full moon of May 2026, known as the flower moon. The Dark-Side Mix will be released later in the month, marking the next new moon.
“It’s really a song to encourage some sort of activism,” Gabriel explains. “I had originally thought about trying to create some music for TheElders.org, who are an extraordinary group of people.
“Their currency is not based on military power, economic power or political power, but the moral authority they have from having lived extraordinary, selfless lives. That’s something I wanted to encourage, because it’s pretty dark out there in lots of places.
“I think we need people who can nudge both us and our leaders and keep alive some basic values of justice, compassion and democracy – a hope that can help us start envisioning a just, peaceful and fairer world.”
Gabriel continues: “I think people generally respond much better to positive pictures of what’s coming than they do when they are bombarded and scared by negative ones. We are much more likely to engage if we feel hope.
“Right now, we don’t see so many positive visions of the future, at least they’re not being projected so strongly as the negative. So I think it’s important that we start looking for visions to which we can aspire and looking for people who can provide that.”
He adds that the song was inspired by Marvin Gaye and the “Cuban element to his song Sexual Healing” which he’d always loved and wanted to evolve. “I think it’s a good band performance – it’s not built up over a lot of time with many different layers, so it feels more alive; and, with this song more than any others on the record, I wanted to have real, live emotion in it.”
The inscription on the hands means ‘give me a hand so I can be held.’ It’s simple, strong and powerful
The second mix, by Tchad Blake (Dark-Side), will illustrate different textures of the track then those emphasised by Mark “Spike” Stent (Bright-Side). Gabriel notes: “There’s a real sense of emotion coming out of both mixes. People always think that the emotion all comes from the song, but actually you can change that enormously by the way you move things, dip them and bring them out, and isolate certain sounds and instruments – by the way you tell the story. It’s very much a creative contribution with these wonderful mixers.”
The artwork accompanying Won’t Stand Down is by US-based Iranian artist Shirin Neshat. Gabriel reports: “This image is very beautiful, powerful and political. Two sets of hands that, to me, represent the need to protect – to protect a positive future for our kids. That’s what I get from the image, though Shirin may well have a very different intent.
“The inscription on the hands is a quote from Rumi, who is a brilliant and inspirational 13th century Sufi mystic – well worth checking out if you’re not familiar with his writings – and apparently it means ‘give me a hand so I can be held.’ It’s simple, strong and powerful.”
o/i is expected at the end of the year. It follows the release pattern of 2023’s i/o, with a track releases following the patterns of the moon. So far this year Gabriel has launched Been Undone in January, Put The Bucket Down in February, What Lies Ahead in March and Till Your Mind Is Shining in April.