Lyrics for Sunday Bloody Sunday as interpreted by archmastermind

Sunday Bloody Sunday Lyrics
Yeah
Ummm, hmmm

I can't believe the news today
Oh, I can't close my eyes and make it go away
How long, how long must we sing this song?
How long, how long
Cause tonight
We can be as one tonight

Broken bottles under children's feet
Bodies strewn across the dead end street
But I won't heed the battle call
It puts my back up
Puts my back up against the wall

Sunday, bloody Sunday
Sunday, bloody Sunday
Sunday, bloody Sunday
Sunday, bloody Sunday

And the battle's just begun
There's many lost, but tell me who has won
The trench is dug within our hearts
And mothers, children, brothers, sisters torn apart

Sunday, bloody Sunday
Sunday, bloody Sunday

How long, how long must we sing this song?
How long, how long
Cause tonight
We can be as one
Tonight, tonight

Sunday, bloody Sunday
Sunday, bloody Sunday

Wipe the tears from your eyes
Wipe your tears away
Oh, wipe your tears away
Oh, wipe your tears away
Sunday, bloody Sunday
Oh, wipe your bloodshot eyes
Sunday, bloody Sunday

Sunday, bloody Sunday
Sunday, bloody Sunday
Sunday, bloody Sunday
Sunday, bloody Sunday

And it's true we are immune
When fact is fiction and TV reality
And today the millions cry
We eat and drink while tomorrow they die

(Sunday, bloody Sunday)

The real battle just begun
To claim the victory Jesus won
On

Sunday bloody Sunday, yeah
Sunday bloody Sunday

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aaaahhhh
03-21-2005

Rated 0 
its about how bloody sunday is just one in a long line of things that happen to us in northern ireland, that both sides are being constantly f**ked and how frustrating it is, as beautifully illustrated by mister irishj and johndunn87 and basically its saying that theres no point to it and we should live in peace and all... and that its frustrating when bigots like johndunn87 refuse to believe that there is a tiny possibility the system might be just a tiny bit biased

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aaaahhhh
03-21-2005

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its about how bloody sunday is just one in a long line of things that happen to us in northern ireland, that both sides are being constantly f**ked and how frustrating it is, as beautifully illustrated by mister irishj and johndunn87 and basically its saying that theres no point to it and we should live in peace and all... and that its frustrating when bigots like johndunn87 refuse to believe that there is a tiny possibility the system might be just a tiny bit biased

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roykeane1
03-24-2005

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His Edgeness said recently that the song was written about his youth when all his friends would go to Mass on a sunday morning and he was left with no-one to hang around with. He felt isolated and lonely adn left onthe outside

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iandkinzel
04-05-2005

Rated 0 
I believe that U2 wrote this song for all the bloody Sundays that ever occurred, how they were all about people begging for basic rights and governments responding with violence.

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ICantLeaveU2Behind
04-09-2005

Rated 0 
aw, i missed the poinless argument. and only by months, too

anyway, i think the album has to be looked at as a whole. if so, the album is about a made-up war and sunday bloody sunday is sort of a warning. bono is asking "why are you starting this in the first place? dont you remember bloody sunday? how long do we have to remind you (how long must we sing this song?) ?"

something slightly irrelevant, though: how many people have read stephen king before? and if you did how many of you have read one that takes place in Derry, Maine? (Dreamcatcher, It, Insomnia) basically, derry is a really messed up town that has been attacked by a shape-changing monster (It), invaded by aliens (dreamcatcher), and visited by the Crimson King (insomnia). at least i think. ive only read dreamcatcher out of those three.

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abbeYroad
04-15-2005

Rated 0 
as previously mentioned, this song is about the massacre in northeren ireland, british troops, yada yada... the guys of u2 were suspecteed of being part of the IRA after this song came out? [they werent tho]

also i kno someone who saw this song performed many years ago and said that after they wre done, someone in the crowd shouted, "GET ENGLAND OUT OF IRELAND!" nad bono just said, "were here to play music, not to get into politics." if only they still abided to that, they wouldnt be sell outs now.

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DiscoFrank
06-09-2005

Rated 0 
It's exactly because of the bickering and fighting in Northern Ireland (shown by our two ambassadors IrishJ and JohnDunn) that we are in such a mess. Until the two sides learn that fighting can't solve anything, our beautiful country will be a war zone. It doesn't matter who shot first on Bloody Sunday. Nobody should have shot at all. "how long must we sing this song?" that was written over 20 years ago, and we're still singing it today.

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eringobragh
06-16-2005

Rated 0 
how tha fuck can dutchoven say its a "good movie" i live in derry, 30 minutes drive from where this massacre took place. it happened over 20 years ago yet the guilty are yet to come to trial and the victims are yet to find justice. the british government has spent millions of pounds on the enquirey but the british soldiers who took the life of these 14 people (another deied later in hospital" still walk the streets 2day. a great song.

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eringobragh
06-16-2005

Rated 0 
and cud every1 please ignore the comment(s) by johndunne87 he has no idea what hes talking about and there is no proof or truth in what he has said. i cud write 5 paragraphs arguing with everything he has said in his one paragraph statement but i realise that hes just a prick so i wont

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Lloyd_Cole
06-28-2005

Rated 0 
Although this song is strictly not specific to the events in Derry on 30th January 1972 which became known as Bloody Sunday, I thought it very appropriate that on their Dublin hometown shows played at Croke Park (24,25 & 27th June 2005) they played Sunday, Bloody, Sunday as it was in this very stadium on the afternoon of 21st November 1920 was Irelands first so called Bloody Sunday. Where the killing by British forces of fourteen civilians—including a Gaelic footballer, Michael Hogan, who was playing for Tipperary that day—at Croke Park. This followed a day of tit-for-tat killings. In all, 30 people died within fifteen hours on that fateful day in Dublin.

Bloody Sunday marked an emotional turning-point in the War of Independence and has gone down as a central event in nationalist history. Bono's call within the song is for the end of pointless sectarianism. At Croke Park on the 27th June 2005 Bono said "are there any Irish flags, now is the time when you should be proud to fly the tricolour", and he was right, force republicanism has claimed ownership of the tricolour for too long, their time is up.

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eringobragh
06-30-2005

Rated 0 
well said, i was there on the 25th - great show!

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Dr Strangelove
07-11-2005

Rated 0 
As a Londoner, this song is very close to me right now. The lyrics 'And it's true we are immune. When fact is fiction and TV reality' are so true. During the IRA years people got used to bombs going off and sometimes, it wasn't even considered a major story. Are we now heading for something similar with Islamic extremism?

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Fuck_L._Ron_Hubbard
07-16-2005

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i have not finished reading all the comments posted about this song, but in reply to the majority on the first page i must say i am outraged that people can even suggest that this song wasnt written by U2, and it was in fact just a COVER?? This song was written on Bloody Sunday. The band was informed of what had happened back in thier home country whilst they were halfway through the 'Rattle and Hum' Tour of America. They wrote this song the same day and performed it at the concert that night. Since then it has been covered by many artists some of which i greatly respect and admire but suggesting that this heartfelt song was not written by U2 is atrocious!

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Lloyd_Cole
07-21-2005

Rated 0 
Fuck_L._Ron_Hubbard of course you can take whatever you want from this song but factually you are totally incorrect. Bono is 45 so if he was to write this song on Bloody Sunday (v.2) he would have been 12, not so. What your really referring to was the outrage that was the Enniskillen bomb in 1987 leaving 11 people dead at a Rememberance Service for those who died in WW1. It occurs on the Sunday nearest to November 11 - Armistice Day in 1918 when hostilities in the First World War ended at 11 a.m. Bono stated at this concert you refer to "leaving people dead and dying under the rubble of a revolution that most of the people in my country don't want.". Eleven Protestants were killed in the bombing, and 63 were injured. Those murdered in the bombing were:

Bertha Armstrong
Edward Armstrong
Wesley Armstrong
Samuel Gault
Jessie Johnson
Kitchener Johnson
John Megaw
Angus Mullen
William Mullen
Georgina Quinton
Marie Wilson

Marie Wilson father Gordon gave an emotional television interview to the BBC the same evening in which he described his last conversation with his daughter as they both lay buried in rubble and pleaded with loyalists not to take revenge for her killing. He became a member of the Irish senate in 1993 on the nomination of the then Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds. On many occasions he met with members of Sinn Fein and representatives of both the Provisional IRA and loyalist paramilitaries in an attempt to persuade these groups to abandon violence. If force Republicanism showed the same level of courage and forgiveness as Gordon Wilson, maybe many fewer people would have been murdered.

It took Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA 10 years to formally apologise for the atrocity. It took Gordon Wilson a few hours.....

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BonoHewson
08-16-2005

Rated 0 
"There's been alot of talk about this song, Maybe, maybe too much talk!"
I think what confuses people a little bit is that Bono will use his songs as he sees fit. The song is on the War album. (1983 Island Records Ltd).
"Fuck_L._Ron_Hubbard" thinks wrongly that it was originaly about Enniskillen, because this atrocity didn't take place until many years later.
On the Rattle and Hum Tour, (© 1988 Island Records, Inc.) Bono pastes the emotion of the song into the then current feelings of that time.
The song was originally inspired by what happened in Derry 1972.
It seems the genius of this transposition has been lost on many in this forum.
Peace

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TheKingScendo
08-23-2005

Rated 0 
The song IS about Derry's Bloody Sunday. When they played Sunday Bloody Sunday at their Dublin gig on their Elevation tour, at theend Bono called out the names of the 13 people killed then said something like "13 lives lost is too many. 1 life lost is too many. When will we learn?"

Anyway I'm from Derry and now where it happened there are all murals showing what happened. Heartbreaking stuff. Specially when i know that it happened only a little while away from where I sleep. As for who shot first, not for us to decide and not for us to know. But I remember a few years ago the inquiry into it confirmed that the first shot came from a building across the street and not the protesters. I think. Anyway the protest happened in the first place cause people were being arrested for having Catholic names and stuff like that. Eventually, fed up with being treated like crap, a bunch of people started a Civil Rights March. A shot was fired, the army thought it was from the protesters and opened fire and massacred any one they could see. I mean have any of you seen the footage of the elderly wounded priest trying to help save this dying little kid? As if a priest and an 8 year old would be in the IRA and shooting at the army. Wrong place, wrong time. Same for all 13 people. I doubt the IRA were even there, but whatever.

Any Protestants/British I know basically hang their head in shame of what the army did that day when this song plays. As for the Derry/LondonDerry bussiness, it's only a matter of time before it all ends and it's once again Derry. Why?Cause the English people hat the fact Northen Ireland is a part of Britain. If it wasn't part of their "country" they'd get less taxes The British Government will give the North back to Ireland to keep the Irish, English and the Irish who think they're English happy.Once that happens, well, Derry really would no longer be under London's rule, so London would be dropped from it's name on all maps.

Apologies for the political rant, it's a great song.

One more thing - congratulations to Britain, you messed up Ireland so much, killing millions over centuries. Good on ya. (bitter sectarian sarcasm)

(That was not directed at all protestants and british people as Im sure some of you are great honest people apalled by what happened)

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Shuke
08-26-2005

Rated 0 
im not sure if somebody already posted this....but there are TWO bloody sundays: the one in the streets of Derry in 1972 which has been posted multiple times; and one in Dublin in 1920. The easter sunday in dublin, when anglo-irish war auxillaries massacred players and fans at a gaelic football game in Croke Park, Dublin.

AWESOME SONG: Shuke

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Shuke
08-26-2005

Rated 0 
awesome song: Shuke

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Paddy88
09-10-2005

Rated 0 
Right, ok!!

Hello everyone, I am Irish (from Belfast, in the troubled north) and I have to join this website just to be able to comment on this song, I have seen a couple of mistakes and doubts here, as an Irishman I am glad to help.

Firslty (not trying to be cheecky just pointing out) Louis Burdett you are wrong, it wasnt Para's it was the actuall brittish army and it was 14 the number of casualties not 13.

albanyankee i am not goin to ridicule no one for no reason, the fact you took time to read the lyrics and have an opinion about them is alright with me.

I am just going to point out that the IRA had nothing to do with this, they wheren't involve at all.

This was a peacefull civil rights protest (because Irish where treated like dirt in the north by the brits) the brittish army didn't like the idea and opened fire (not gonna go into much details) but 14 inocent young lifes where taken away.

The onlyone to blame here is the army, and worse of all is that after that the queen presented an award to the brave soldiers that took part in the Bloody Sunday massacre, A FUCKING JOKE (excuse my french)

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lnknprky2k
09-28-2005

Rated 0 
This song IS written by U2 and IS about northern ireland. Its about Bloody Sunday in Derry on January 30th 1972 where 13 innocent people were shot in the backs while running in between flats (apartment buildings) and were shot by the british paramilitarys. The para's are the british equivalent of the marines. It was a huge cover up by the british government. They planted bombs on people they killed and said they were members of the now disbanded IRA. The IRA in fact were on the other side of Derry in the waterside and the first shots were fired by paras up on the walls. They have radio transmissions recorded of them firing. There are books on Bloody Sunday and i have read a few of which i cannot remember the names but there is a movie that was made because of one of the books and i think its called Bloody Sunday. When Bono had the outburst in the concert on the Rattle and Hum tape he was refering to a bomb in Enniskillin which killed i think 18 people. There was a parade for a protestant paramilitary and they blew up a bomb. All the medics and army men ran in and another bomb, an even bigger bomb, hidden under the first was detonated killing more people. I am irish and i'm from Belfast, Northern Ireland. This is one of the things i like to study and have read a lot about. This is by far my favorite song of all time and the couple of times i was at U2 concerts made me cry. U2 ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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u2fandango
10-06-2005

Rated 0 
The real battle just begun
To claim the victory Jesus won
On

Sunday bloody Sunday

i also think its a cry for christians to rise up and to help end war.

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u2fandango
10-06-2005

Rated 0 
The real battle just begun
To claim the victory Jesus won
On

Sunday bloody Sunday

i also think its a cry for christians to rise up and to help end war.

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TinyTim
12-17-2005

Rated 0 
After reading through the replies I'm dis-heartened to see how much rubbish,accusations and verbal abuse there is.

How many of those posted actually listened to the Song...???
I felt it was heart felt plea to end violence from both sides of the Troubles.

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Nikhil06
01-20-2006

Rated 0 
I think that this song is very good

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Slap_A_Dead_Person
01-22-2006

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Well, folks are partially right and wrong about this one.

The metaphor is actually an amalgamation of Derry, 1972, but also a football riot in Dublin, WAY back in 1920.

Two messages can be extracted from the song. The first, most obviously, is Bono's anger not at any specific group, but at the irony of it all-Two sides who've each decided that not only are the semantics of their relationship with God the only proper ones, and they each love Him so much that they're willing to spill blood over it. ( One could also argue that he felt that neither side was really fighting because of their devotion to their faith but to their devotion to just plain old fighting because it's been so for such a long time).

The other point is that Bono is sick of reliving these events...quit re-opening old wounds, and begin the healing ("How long, how long must we sing this song").

The overall message is that the only side he's taking is that of peace. That was the point of "the victory Jesus won". He's pleading for both sides to leave past animosities behind, recognise that they're worshipping the same God, and to act on the priciples of God's word, not the fine print.

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