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"I Don't Like Mondays" is a song by Irish band The Boomtown Rats about the 1979 Cleveland Elementary School shooting in San Diego. 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 British hit of 1979. Written by Bob Geldof, it was the band's second number one single.
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". Her flippant response attracted a lot of media attention and inspired the song. 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."
Spencer's family tried to prevent the single from being released in the United States, but were unsuccessful.
In later years, Geldof stated that he regretted writing the song because he "made Brenda Spencer famous".
A music video directed by David Mallet was used to promote the song. The video begins with the Boomtown Rats performing in a choir with children in the pews miming the chorus ("Tell Me Why?"). It then cuts to a family living room with the daughter just coming back from school but here the chorus is mimed by the other three band members to lead singer Bob Geldof. It then transitions to a soft piano fill with Geldof in front of a white background wearing sunglasses singing the final verse of the single version. After the line "And the lesson today is how to die" a series of jump cuts of Geldof quickly appear before he sings the last few lines. Afterwards the final chorus is presented this time mimed with the same children from the beginning. The clip ends with the Boomtown Rats looking at a chroma key image of the house in a grassy plain from the video's opening image.
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"I Don't Like Mondays" is a song by Irish band The Boomtown Rats about the 1979 Cleveland Elementary School shooting in San Diego. 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 British hit of 1979. Written by Bob Geldof, it was the band's second number one single.
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". Her flippant response attracted a lot of media attention and inspired the song. 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."
Spencer's family tried to prevent the single from being released in the United States, but were unsuccessful.
In later years, Geldof stated that he regretted writing the song because he "made Brenda Spencer famous".
A music video directed by David Mallet was used to promote the song. The video begins with the Boomtown Rats performing in a choir with children in the pews miming the chorus ("Tell Me Why?"). It then cuts to a family living room with the daughter just coming back from school but here the chorus is mimed by the other three band members to lead singer Bob Geldof. It then transitions to a soft piano fill with Geldof in front of a white background wearing sunglasses singing the final verse of the single version. After the line "And the lesson today is how to die" a series of jump cuts of Geldof quickly appear before he sings the last few lines. Afterwards the final chorus is presented this time mimed with the same children from the beginning. The clip ends with the Boomtown Rats looking at a chroma key image of the house in a grassy plain from the video's opening image.
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