There is a tragic story behind the origins of one of the most successful pop songs ever: I Don't Like Mondays.
Transcript:I Don’t Like Mondays by the Boomtown Rats is a song released in 1979. Written by two of the band’s members - lead singer Bob Geldof and keyboardist Johnnie Fingers - the song’s seemingly upbeat melody and sound contrasts the tragic true story the lyrics are hiding. This song was very much the Pumped Up Kicks of its time.
The song is about a a school shooting that took place a Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego on January 29, 1979. I’ve decided not to name the perpetrator in the video. Living across from the school, the 16 year old perpetrator fired on students and teachers while they waited for the gates to open at the beginning of the day. 8 children were injured and 2 adults were killed and 1 police officer was wounded. Further casualties were avoided because the police managed to moved a garbage truck in front of the perpetrator house obstructing their line of fire.
The perpetrator then barricaded themselves inside the house for several hours. During this time a reporter called the house and to his surprise, the perpetrator picked up. When asked why they had did it, they responded "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day”. They finally surrounded and left the house and it was reported that the standoff with police only came to an end after negotiators promised the perpetrator a burger king meal.
According to Bob Geldof, he started writing the song after reading a telex report about the incident at a College campus radio station in Georgia. What’s a telex report you ask, great question, I didn’t know either. It’s basically an old fax machine. What’s a fax machine you ask, great question. It’s basically-
In an interview with the magazine Smash Hits, Geldof explained how the song came to be:
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.
Lyrics from the song make specific references to the shooting including of course the title, the age of the perpetrator and even the telex machine.
The song went on to become a huge hit, reaching No.1 in the UK charts and in various other counties.
Bob Geldof would go on to become widely recognised for his activism. He organised the charity supergroup Band Aid and co-wrote the song Do They Know It’s Christmas? Which became one of the best-selling singles of all time. Plus, he organised the iconic charity fund-raising concerts Live Aid and Live 8. Bob Geldof performed IDLM at both of these concerts, apparently the Live 8 performance being a spur of the moment decision by Geldof himself. Also, during Live Aid he famous gave an impassioned plea to encourage people to donate even dropping an F bomb on national tv which was a huge deal in those days.
In later years, Geldof has admitted that he actually regretted writing the song I Don’t Like Mondays because it made the perpetrator famous. Geldof revealed that he had gotten a letter from the perpetrator saying:
[They] wrote to me saying that [They] were glad [They’d] done it because I’d made her famous, which is not a good thing to live with.’
IDLM is perhaps the song that the Boomtown Rats are most famous for. Particularly to anyone born after the band’s split in the late 80s. Despite being over 40 years old, the song still feels depressingly… relevant. Let’s hope that’s not the case for much longer.
27 авг 2024
