An Analysis Of Bano's 'Bloody Sunday'

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In the Bogside area of Derry, there was a tragic incident known as Bloody Sunday or the Bogside Massacre for sometimes. Twenty-eight unarmed civilians were shot down by equipped British soldiers when protesting internment without trial introduced to deal with the escalating level of violence peacefully.(Gillespie). As a reaction to the tragedy, Bano in an Irish band called U2 wrote a protest song called Sunday Bloody Sunday, in which he asked for the peaceful future without conflicts. Repeating “how long must we sing this song?” among the whole lyric, this protest song Bano wrote utilized a peaceful way to depict the scenes of Bloody Sunday, the loathing for the horrible massacre, and their beautiful expects for the future filling with hopes. …show more content…

According to the first two, it is clear that Bano was filled with sadness and anger about that incident. Actually, in the whole song, the elementary emotions around are anger and heavy sadness. In the following, the key question “how long must we sing this song?” was given out by Bano as a question not only for all the civilians in this nation but also for the politicians or government. Tracing the Irish history, Bogside Massacre is not the first well-known Bloody Sunday. In a fact, the first Bloody Sunday occurred on 21st November 1920 when British troops fired at a football game in Croke Park. (Foley). Repeating “how long must we sing this song?” with “we can be as one, tonight” followed, Bano shows his wrath and grief at the first repetition of the key question, as same as his immediate reactions toward that massacre. However, he used “we” instead of “I”, and also implies the answer-- we should not have to sing this song any longer. Even more, we should not have to sing this song at …show more content…

For the genre, Sunday Bloody Sunday is defined as a post-punk music, a branch of rock music. However, it is very rare that protest song is performed in rock style, in which many people doubt for if a rock band can play well a protest song. Calling for the change as a normal protest song, Bano started to wake people from this terrible situation and tried to evoke their hopes toward the future for listeners. Based on “it’s true we are immune/ when fact is fiction and TV reality” (Line 37-38), though it may be only what Bano thought, people definitely are immune in some cases. However, in this case, “today the millions cry/ We eat and drink while tomorrow they die” (Line 39-40), which means there was something people will show their pathos on in common. All in this nation realized the severity. Although the call for a change is a firm rule for one protest song, people would consider this song is way more like a rebel song filling with inciting sense, not a peaceful song at all. What’s more, there are so many violent words inside, such as obvious “bloody” in everywhere. In response to the argument, Bano actually proved in his lyric from then. Tending to calm down people and give them a new anger relief, Bano wrote: “To claim the victory Jesus won” (Line 42) as peaceful

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