I Don't Like Mondays

I Don't Like Mondays was a UK number one single for 4 weeks in July 1979. Written by Bob Geldof and performed by The Boomtown Rats it was the band's second number one single.

Inspired by the actions of Brenda Ann Spencer when she killed two and injured nine on January 23, 1979 and her lack of remorse, and inability to provide a serious explanation for her actions when captured other than the reason "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 Bon Jovi as a bonus track on the double CD version of their 1995 album These Days and 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. This recorded performance features on Bon Jovi's live album One Wild Night. 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 was featured during a fictional bombing at a university, the story behind the song having been told earlier in the episode.