Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Yes...
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
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 blood shot 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
Sunday Bloody Sunday...

I had always liked this song by U2, but it was not until my first year in the teaching training college, during my social studies lesson, that I really realized what the lyrics were about. What was the “Bloody Sunday”? Had it actually existed? To my surprise it was a well known historic event in the UK.
As you may know, U2 is an Irish rock band and this is quite significant since “Bloody Sunday” took place in Derry (Ireland). “Bloody Sunday” is an incident which occurred on 30 January 1972, an idle Sunday, in which 14 people were slaughtered. Who were these people? Why were they killed? By whom?
Most of the victims were unarmed members of a civil rights group who were part of a protest and who suffered from brutal and bloody repression by the British Army. But, protesters were not the only ones who were shot at, some of the victims were just bystanders whose mistake was to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time. As I said before, the victims were 14, 7 of them were adolescents. Not every victim died of gunshot wounds- two of them died after being run down by vehicles from the British Army- and of those who did, 5 were shot in the back. What is even more indignant is the fact that up to now, none of the murderers have been condemned on the basis that they acted recklessly and for fear of a savage attack carried out by these protesters- unarmed protesters.
“Broken bottles under children's feet
Bodies strewn across the dead end street”
I found these two lines vividly illustrative. Just by reading them, you can have the mental image and the nasty feeling of how terrible being there must have been. I think that those who died in this event and those who found themselves part of it out of the blue deserve this song so as to be remembered.
I hope you like it.