The pounding uptempo drumbeat caught my attention first, it sounded different than anything I had ever heard. I can’t remember if I was with a friend or by myself driving on some back country road in the early 1980s, but I vaguely remember turning the song up high on the radio.
The song got your attention right away. When I turned on my local radio station most nights, I got a steady heaping of a narrow band of cotton candy pop music ranging from Irene Cara singing “Flashdance . . . What a feeling,” Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want To Have Fun,” to Men at Work’s “Down Under.”
They were all fine songs, sure, but nothing I hadn’t heard a million times before that night. The drumbeat told me right away I was listening to something different. U2 and their 1983 single “Sunday Bloody Sunday” from their Album War didn’t sound like any of those songs. It didn’t sound like anything anything I had ever heard period, and Bono hadn’t even gotten started yet.
Next came his haunting words. They felt loaded with emotion.
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.
Oh, I didn’t know much about Irish history. I was your typical American teenager, I had no clue who was who. Were the Protestants the unionists and loyalists, who wanted Northern Ireland to remain within the United Kingdom? Or was that the Irish Catholics? Heck, I didn’t know. And I didn’t have Google to check.
I certainly didn’t know the details, but it wasn’t hard to understand that something horrible had happened. Of course, Bono was singing about the 1972 Bloody Sunday incident in Derry where British troops shot and killed 14 unarmed civil rights protesters. Many of the victims were shot at point blank range, while some who were helping the injured were shot. Other protesters were injured by rubber bullets or batons, and two were run down by Army vehicles.
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 wallSunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Alright, let’s go
The song put me on the ground, I felt like I was there on the street in the chaos and confusion. I could imagine people around me injured and crying out for help. I felt the absurdity of the situation.
And the battle’s just begun
There’s many lost, but tell me who has won?
The trenches dug within our hearts
And mothers, children, brothers, sisters torn apart.Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday, Bloody SundayHow long, how long must we sing this song?
How long? How long?
I was transfixed by the song, but at the same time, though, Bono’s words stopped me in my tracks: “There’s many lost, but tell me who has won.” Did I hear that correctly? I thought his next words would be to point fingers and demand retribution and revolution, but he wasn’t, he was talking about lives being torn apart, he was questioning the purpose of the violence. I remember asking what kind of revolution song was this? He wasn’t calling for blood. Instead, he was calling for peace?
‘Cause tonight we can be as one, tonight
Tonight, tonight (Sunday, Bloody Sunday)
Tonight, tonight (Sunday, Bloody Sunday)
Alright, let’s goWipe the tears from your eyes
Wipe your tears away
I’ll wipe your tears away
I’ll wipe your tears away (Sunday, Bloody Sunday)
I’ll wipe your bloodshot eyes (Sunday, Bloody Sunday)
I thought more about Northern Ireland and other places like it, including South Africa (this was in the middle of Apartheid) and parts of America. Oh sure, I definitely wanted to get out of my small town and even sometimes felt like an outcast, but I faced nothing like what Bono was describing. Despite the differences, I wanted a better way of life for everyone. I understood that we all deserved better.
There have a been lots of protest songs over the year, some protesting war and killing, others protesting the government and parental control of music such as Twisted Sister’s 1984 hit “We’re not gonna take it.” I can’t speak to many other protest songs, but Sunday Bloody Sunday most definitely got my attention and reminded me to make the best of my situation and fight for justice every where.
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday, Bloody SundayAnd it’s true we are immune
When fact is fiction and TV reality
And today the millions cry (Sunday, Bloody Sunday)
We eat and drink while tomorrow they die (Sunday, Bloody Sunday)The real battle just begun (Sunday, Bloody Sunday)
To claim the victory Jesus won (Sunday, Bloody Sunday)
On Sunday, Bloody Sunday, yeah
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
……
This is the third in my blog series on the ways music touches our lives. How has music or a particular song touched your life and what do you think of the series?
Writing from the Heart with Brian 
Sometimes I wonder if I grew up under a rock. I would have been 10 years old when this massacre happened so my parents would have protected me from ever hearing of such a horror. I wasn’t ever a big U2 fan so I missed this song and only heard it today for the first time. Thank you for this one, Brian. Once unseen (and heard) it cannot be unseen…🙏
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You didn’t grow up under a rock Patti. I think it’s just life. We as parents shield our kids from news like that. Plus, it may be thousands of miles away. Back in the day too, we didn’t have the technology too. The internet really does make a big difference. When the song came out, I remember asking my friends about it and no one had really knew that much yet about U2. They surely didn’t know much about Northern Ireland and the bombing. Times sure have changed!
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Thanks so much Brian 🙂🙏 I grew up in a small town with one AM radio station and (I learned years later) a very controlling station manager who carefully monitored what songs the public was allowed to hear (soft pop tunes and mainstream country only). Then as a young adult, I moved to a French province where the focus was (some pretty great) Francophone music. There is so much music I never got to hear, that I have only rediscovered recently thanks to YouTube and Sirius radio. It often embarrasses me, just how much I missed. I’m glad you introduced me to this one: I’ve been humming it to myself all day. Truly an education, and I am grateful to you for that!
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I think we grew up in the same town. Mine had one AM station that played country and one FM one that played the same three pop songs. I would drive an hour away to get closer to a nearby college town to get my “culture.” When I first heard the song, it kept going in and out because it was playing on an out of town radio station. I’m like you, I still hear many songs that I feel like I missed somewhere along the line. My kids probably have a better musical education than me. My youngest son, in particular, likes to tell me about bands from the 60s – 70s and 80s that I’ve never heard of. Kind of funny.
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Oh my kids GREATLY expanded my musical repertoire!!! They still do, especially my daughter, who loves music on a visceral level, like I do. I used to play a game when we took long trips in the car of ‘guess the decade’. I loved – and played – a lot of oldies, and the kids got to pretty good with their guesses. But it’s my kids who introduced me to Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Aerosmith, etc. I thought I was dreaming – in a great way – the first time I heard Kashmir…
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Well done
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Giving me goosebumps reading your words. I guess, being in the UK and having some Northern Irish blood I was aware of how much the violence tearing Ireland apart was impacting on everyone.
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Yes Brenda, I bet you had an entirely different experience on the violence. In my little rural town, it was so foreign, seemed so far away. I think that’s why the song meant something to me. It made me take notice.
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Haunting lyrics. You’ve captured the feeling well. Thanks for all of this, Brian. ❤
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I just remember it being different. My local radio station didn’t play much other than top 40, so back in the day, there was no way I was going to hear much early U2 music.
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Yes…agree! There was A LOT of Cyndi Lauper…which I enjoy…but even good stuff gets stale with too much repetition! 😉
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One of my favorite songs has always been her song . . . Time after Time. I always liked the change of pace from “Girls just want to have fun.”
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I would have been in high school – 10th grade – when this occurred, but I don’t think any of us in my life circle spoke of it. Of course, I blame the fact that in my mother’s family, if you didn’t actually talk about something, you could still pretend it didn’t exist (no one ever said the word ‘cancer’ aloud even though my grandfather slowly died of it). Those lyrics are haunting, and I suspect I’m going to be using Google to find out about this event! Thanks for bringing it to my consciousness!
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Also back then, we seemed to be much more myopic. At least where I grew up, we didn’t pay as much attention to world events. I didn’t hear much about the UK or Northern Ireland unless some major violence broke out and even then it depended on what else was happening in the US on that day. Plus if Walter Cronkite didn’t talk about it, it didn’t happen.
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Your post made me think about the birth of folk music in the 60’s Brian- Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez… I think many of us still remember this time and these artists as marking the quintessential protest-song genre. Green Days “American Idiot” was hugely popular when my two oldest were in high school, I think there are components to rap that can be considered protest laden as well. I like U2 a lot remember being much older before I realized the intensity in that song. On a side note about U2- I am all about The Edge and that iconic guitar!
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I came a little later, missing some of the 60s protest songs. I guess for me, U2 and some of the punk bands from the 70s played that role. American Idiot is another great song. I’m not sure how I missed Green Day when they first came out, but definitely like them.
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“New Year’s Day” was my introduction to U2. Like “Sunday”, it also had a sound unlike any I’d heard before. That got my attention, and they’ve kept it ever since.
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Another great song. In some ways, even better. Love both of them. Yes, still very much a U2 fan. Thanks so much for commenting!
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Wow Brian, I too remember that era, it was not a good time at all in many ways but being so young it seemed less relevant to me. But, it really was looking back.
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Yes, it really was a crazy time, but it’s the time I go back to a lot on my blog and memory. Funny how that works!
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I too miss the old days, Brian. If I could go back to 1979, I’d do it right away and do things better this time!
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I have never heard about this massacre before. How can that be? Did we ignore it in the US?
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It happened in 1972 in Derry. U2s song came was released in 1983. My only thought was that it was a different time. I know I didn’t really hear about world news like I do now.
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I wasn’t watching news in the early 1970s! Also didn’t spend much time on news in college.
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These lyrics caught my attention. I heard these musicians back years ago. Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan were so fascinating. Anita
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I’m not too familiar with U2’s discography and have not heard of this one. I love that their works are not only timeless but also had depth in its message?
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