‘I Don't Like Mondays’ is a song by Irish new wave group the Boomtown Rats about the Cleveland Elementary School shooting in San Diego. It was released in 1979 as the lead single from their third album, The Fine Art of Surfacing. The song was a number-one single in the UK Singles Chart for four weeks during the summer of 1979, and ranks as the sixth-biggest hit of the UK in 1979. Written by Bob Geldof and Johnnie Fingers, the piano ballad was the band's second single to reach number one on the UK chart.
According to Geldof, he wrote the song after reading a telex report at Georgia State University's campus radio station, WRAS, on the shooting spree of 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer, who fired at children in a school playground at Grover Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego, California, on 29 January 1979, killing two adults and injuring eight children and one police officer. Spencer showed no remorse for her crime; her explanation for her actions was "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day". Geldof had been contacted by Steve Jobs to play a gig for Apple, inspiring the opening line about a "silicon chip". The song was first performed less than a month later.
Geldof explained how he wrote the song: “I was doing a radio interview in Atlanta with Johnnie Fingers and there was a telex machine beside me. I read it as it came out. Not liking Mondays as a reason for doing somebody in is a bit strange. I was thinking about it on the way back to the hotel and I just said 'silicon chip inside her head had switched to overload'. I wrote that down. And the journalists interviewing her said, 'Tell me why?' It was such a senseless act. It was the perfect senseless act and this was the perfect senseless reason for doing it. So perhaps I wrote the perfect senseless song to illustrate it. It wasn't an attempt to exploit tragedy.” In later years, Geldof stated that he regretted writing the song because he "made Brenda Spencer famous".
In the UK, the song won the prestigious Best Pop Song and Outstanding British Lyric categories at The Ivor Novello Awards. It was also voted 1979's "Single of the Year" in the British Pop and Rock awards. Despite reaching number one in the United Kingdom, the song reached only number 73 on the US Billboard Hot 100, however it reached number 1 in 32 other countries.
Labels – Ensign (UK), Columbia (US)
Songwriters – Bob Geldof, Johnnie Fingers
Producer – Phil Wainman
SONG LYRICS
[Verse 1]The silicon chip inside her head
Gets switched to overload
And nobody's gonna go to school today
She's gonna make them stay at home
And daddy doesn't understand it
He always said she was good as gold
And he can see no reasons 'cause there are no reasons
What reason do you need to be shown?
Oh oh oh
[Chorus]
(Tell me why) I don't like Mondays
(Tell me why) I don't like Mondays
(Tell me why) I don't like Mondays
I wanna shoot-ooh, the whole day down
[Verse 2]
The Telex machine is kept so clean
And it types to a waiting world
And mother feels so shocked, father's world is rocked
And their thoughts turn to their own little girl
Sweet 16 ain't that peachy keen
Now that ain't so neat to admit defeat
They can see no reasons 'cause there are no reasons
What reasons do you need?
Oh oh oh whoa whoa
[Chorus]
(Tell me why) I don't like Mondays
(Tell me why) I don't like Mondays
(Tell me why) I don't like Mondays
I wanna shoot-ooh, the whole day down
Down, down, shoot it all down
[Verse 3]
And all the playing's stopped in the playground now
She wants to play with the toys a while
And school's out early and soon we'll be learning
And the lesson today is how to die
And then the bullhorn crackles and the captain tackles
With the problems of the hows and whys
And he can see no reasons 'cause there are no reasons
What reason do you need to die?
Die, oh oh oh
[Verse 1]
The silicon chip inside her head
Gets switched to overload
And nobody's gonna go to school today
She's gonna make them stay at home
And daddy doesn't understand it
He always said she was good as gold
And he can see no reasons 'cause there are no reasons
What reason do you need to be shown?
Oh oh oh
[Chorus]
(Tell me why) I don't like Mondays
(Tell me why) I don't like Mondays
(Tell me why) I don't like, I don't like
(Tell me why) I don't like Mondays
(Tell me why) I don't like, I don't like
(Tell me why) I don't like Mondays
(Tell me why) I don't like Mondays
I wanna shoot-ooh, the whole day down
[Outro]
Ooh ooh
Ooh ooh ooh
Ooh ooh ooh ooh