Sunday Bloody Sunday uplifting structure. Bono once commented that "love is...a central theme" of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" The band have said the lyrics refer to the events of both Bloody Sunday in 1972 and Bloody Sunday in 1920, but are not specifically about either event. The song takes the standpoint of someone horrified by the cycle of violence in the province. Bono rewrote the Edge's initial lyrics, attempting to contrast the two events with Easter Sunday, but he has said that the band were too inexperienced at the time to fully realise that goal, noting that "it was a song whose eloquence lay
Sunday Bloody Sunday and machine-gun drumming [is] crisscrossed by skipping violin." Denise Sullivan commented for "Allmusic" that Mullen's opening drumwork "helps set the tone for the unforgiving, take-no-prisoners feel of the song, as well as for the rest of the album." In 2010, "Rolling Stone" ranked "Sunday Bloody Sunday" 272nd on its list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time." In 2006, "Q" named "Sunday Bloody Sunday" the 18th-greatest song of the 1980s. The staff of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame selected "Sunday Bloody Sunday" as one of 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. The "New Statesman" listed it