An ambitious undertaking, "Sunday Bloody Sunday" set the tone for War, a breakthrough album for U2 on the U.K. charts. At the top, Larry Mullens counts off the song with a restrictive, martial beat which carries over throughout the take-no-prisoners theme of the album. The Edge lets out a foreboding guitar feedback sound, signalling a warning for the doom at hand. Though Bono claims he wrote the song quickly, explaining away any arguable lyrical naïveté, he stands firmly behind the passion harnessed in each verse. His idea was to compare and contrast the troubles in Northern Ireland and a particularly bloody massacre there with the religious significance of Easter Sunday. More so than perhaps any of U2's many peace anthems, "Sunday Bloody Sunday" is the blueprint for the strident cause-orientated songs that would become the band's stock-in-trade throughout its long career as a politically charged and humanist rock band.
U2
Sunday Bloody Sunday
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Song Review by Denise Sullivan
Appears On
| Year | Artist/Album | Label | Time | AllMusic Rating | |||
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1983 | Island | 4:39 | ||||
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1983 | BMG | 4:37 | ||||
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1984 | Island | |||||
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1987 | Island | 0:00 | ||||
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1991 | RP | 0:00 | ||||
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1995 |
Various Artists
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Polygram / Polystar | 4:36 | |||
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1995 |
Various Artists
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Time / Life Music | 4:41 | |||
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1998 | Island | 0:00 | ||||
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1998 | Island | 4:40 | ||||
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1998 | Island | 4:40 | ||||
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2006 | Classic Rock Legends | |||||
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2006 | Interscope | 4:40 | ||||
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2007 |
Various Artists
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Universal / Universal Distribution | 4:38 | |||
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2009 | Island / Universal Island Records | 4:39 | ||||
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2009 | Island | 4:41 |
