Is there a time for keeping your distance?
A time to turn your eyes away?
Is there a time for keeping your head down?
For getting on with your day?

Is there a time for Kohl and lipstick?
A time for cutting hair?
Is there a time for high street shopping
To find the right dress to wear?

Here she comes
Heads turn around
Here she comes
To take her crown

Is there a time to run for cover?
A time for kiss and tell?
Is there a time for different colors?
Different names you find it hard to spell

Is there a time for first communion?
A time for east 17?
Is there a time to turn to mecca?
Is there time to be a beauty queen?

Here she comes
Beauty plays the clown
Here she comes
Surreal in her crown

Dici che il fiume
Trova la via al mare
E come il fiume
Giungerai a me

Oltre i confini
E le terre assetate
Dici che come fiume
Come fiume

L'amore giungera
L'amore
E non so piu pregare
E nell'amore non so piu sperare
E quell'amore non so piu aspettare

Is there a time for tying ribbons?
A time for Christmas trees?
Is there a time for laying tables?
And the night is set to freeze?


Lyrics submitted by scottishboy

Miss Sarajevo Lyrics as written by Brian Peter George Eno Adam Clayton

Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Royalty Network

Lyrics powered by LyricFind

Miss Sarajevo song meanings
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26 Comments

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  • +3
    General Comment

    If you know the meaning of this song, and you're just like me, you will be listening to it on repeat and sobbing, not crying, for minutes on end.

    Was a more beautiful/sad song ever crafted? I think not.

    "DON'T LET THEM KILL US"

    caralhovoadoron November 24, 2009   Link
  • +2
    General Comment

    This song was inspired by a documentary, also called 'Miss Sarajevo'.. which covered a beauty pageant held in war-torn Yugoslavia, which gun booming all around... A sort of a protest song..

    sumiton December 08, 2004   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    Yeah, it's great!

    placebiston April 17, 2005   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    This song always brings a tear to my eye, how in the midst of the atrocities going on in Sarajevo they did what people do and got on with life by holding a beauty pageant. I'd never read the english translation of Pavarotti's bit before, but that is so haunting, the urgency and despair that underlies the "Miss Sarajevo' pageant...

    Elcarimon April 01, 2006   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    Pavarotti's solo adds such a wrenching emotion to this song; perhaps that was the aim of keeping the rest of the song "boring" (referring to the description given in a previous post) - so that it could highlight the contrast given to the feeling of the song when Pavarotti sings. I happen to really like the almost monotonous flow of the rest of the song; the gentle melody is nice, and I think it helps to reflect one of the subjects of the song's protest: that the countries of the Western world distracted themselves with things like consumerism (at some points in the song, the music behind Bono resembles that which could be heard in a department store), or else just drifted along while Eastern Europe burned.

    I've seen the doc Miss Sarajevo; it is a great film. Go out and watch it if you're able to.

    mallentarielon July 18, 2007   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    As a fan of U2, I do consider this one of their best songs and I cannot think of a better collaboration by any artist I've heard. Pavarotti's voice can still send shivers, it's so far above what I normally hear vocally (I don't listen to opera) that it really adds power.

    Skoorbon November 14, 2007   Link
  • +1
    My Interpretation

    beauty plays the cLown, not the cRown

    elfionon October 11, 2009   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    Pavorotti is a beast in this song. Wow.

    actanonverbaon August 12, 2010   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    You say that the river Find your way to the sea And as the river You will come to me Beyond the borders And the thirsty lands You say that as the river as river Love will come the love And I no longer pray And in love I do not know more hope And I do not know that love wait

    eoingibbon1998on April 10, 2015   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    this song really kicks ass! what a mind trip!

    BrazilianFanon September 22, 2002   Link

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