Sunday Bloody Sunday
by U2
- 101
- BPM
- F# major
- Key
- 2B
- Camelot
- 55
- Danceability
- 41
- Acousticness
In 1982 U2 were preparing material for their next album. Bono and Ali Hewson were on their honeymoon in Jamaica, and the Edge was at work in Ireland. After an argument with his girlfriend and a spell of doubt in his own songwriting, he put his fear and frustration into a riff and a lyric. Bono later reworked the words, and the band recorded "Sunday Bloody Sunday" at Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin.
Producer Steve Lillywhite wanted drummer Larry Mullen Jr. to use a click track, and Mullen refused until a chance meeting with Andy Newmark of Sly and the Family Stone, who used one religiously, changed his mind. Mullen's drums were recorded at the base of a staircase for a more natural reverb. A local violinist, Steve Wickham, asked the Edge at a bus stop whether U2 needed a violin, and he spent half a day in the studio on the electric violin part.
The lyrics were prompted by a heated talk in a New York bar between manager Paul McGuinness and a St. Patrick's Day parade organizer. The band say the words refer to Bloody Sunday in 1972, when British troops shot 14 unarmed civil rights protesters in Derry, and to the one in 1920, without being about either. The track opened the album War, released in 1983.
Sunday Bloody Sunday runs at 101 BPM, the tempo of mid-tempo pop, dancehall and indie. In classical terms it sits in andante territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 2.38 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 594 ms. It is in F# major, Camelot 2B, which shares its notes with Eb minor and mixes cleanly with B major and Db major.
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