I Don't Like Mondays
| "I Don't Like Mondays" | |
|---|---|
| Song | |
| B-side | "It's All the Rage" |
"I Don't Like Mondays" was a UK number one single for four weeks in July 1979. Written by Bob Geldof and performed by The Boomtown Rats, it was the band's second number one single.
Geldof wrote the song after reading a telex report on the shooting spree of 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer, who fired at children playing in a school playground across the street from her home in San Diego, California. She killed two adults and injured eight children and one police officer. Spencer showed no remorse for her crime, and her explanation for her actions was "I don't like Mondays." [1] The song was first performed less than a month later at the Fox Theatre, San Diego.[2]
Despite being a major hit in the United Kingdom, it only reached #73 on the Billboard Hot 100, partly due to Geldof's antagonistic attitude towards U.S. radio stations. The song was played regularly on Monday mornings by album-oriented rock format radio stations in the United States throughout the 1980s, although radio stations in San Diego continued not to play the track for some years in respect to the local sensitivity surrounding the events on which it was based. The song became Number One in the UK single charts in July 1979. It was subsequently covered by Tori Amos on her 2001 album Strange Little Girls and later by G4 on their 2006 album Act Three.
At a concert in London in 1995, just before the tenth anniversary of Live Aid (during which Geldof himself performed the song in the Boomtown Rats' final major appearance), Bon Jovi covered the song after being joined on stage by Geldof at Wembley Stadium. This recorded performance features on Bon Jovi's live album One Wild Night Live 1985-2001, as well as on the bonus 2-CD edition of These Days. Geldof himself performed an impromptu version of the song while hosting the Live 8 concert in London, on July 2 2005 (11 days before the 20th anniversary of Live Aid).
In "20 Hours in America, Part II", the second episode of season 4 of The West Wing, the song (covered by Tori Amos) was featured during the aftermath of a fictional bombing at a university, the story behind the song having been told in the previous episode: "20 Hours in America, Part I".
The introduction to the song was played by Hugh Laurie and Dave Matthews, as a musical savant with dystonia, on the piano, during the third-season episode of House, "Half-Wit".
The melody of the song also serves as the basis for the F. C. Copenhagen football team' song.
References
- ^ Barbara Mikkelson (29 September 2005). "Urban Legends Reference Pages: Music (I Don't Like Mondays)". snopes.com. Retrieved 2007-04-17.
- ^ "Concerts for Boomtown Rats". Concert Vault. Retrieved 2007-04-17.