I Don't Like Mondays (song)
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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 was waiting to be interviewed at a radio station when a nearby teleprinter (the "telex machine" in the song's lyrics) began printing out a 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 house. She killed two adults and injured eight children and one police officer. Spencer showed no remorse for her crime, and her only explanation for her actions when captured was "I don't like Mondays."
Despite being a major hit in the UK it only reached #73 on the Billboard Hot 100, partly due to Geldof's antagonistic attitude towards the radio stations. The song was played regularly on Monday mornings by album-oriented rock format radio stations in the United States throughout the 1980s. It got to Number One in the UK single charts in July 1979, and was also covered by Tori Amos on her 2001 album Strange Little Girls.
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 2 July 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 earlier in the episode.
| Preceded by: "Are 'Friends' Electric?" by Tubeway Army |
UK number one single July 28, 1979 |
Succeeded by: "We Don't Talk Anymore" by Cliff Richard |
