I don't like mondays
| I don't like mondays | |
|---|---|
| The Boomtown Rats | |
| publication | July 21, 1979 |
| length | 4:19 |
| Genre (s) | New wave , rock |
| Author (s) | Bob Geldof |
| Label |
Ensign Records (UK) Columbia Records |
| album | The Fine Art of Surfacing |
I Don't Like Mondays (Engl. For: “ I don't like Mondays ”) is a rock song written by Bob Geldof . It was the greatest success for his band The Boomtown Rats and appeared on their album The Fine Art of Surfacing in 1979 . The piece became a number one hit in the UK , reached number 6 in Germany and number 73 in the US.
Emergence
Geldof was inspired by the 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer , who shot a semi-automatic rifle from a window of her parents' house on Monday, January 29, 1979 on the opposite site of the Grover Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego . She killed the headmaster Burton Wragg and the caretaker Mike Suchar and injured a police officer and eight students. As a reason for her act, she gave a journalist on the phone and the police when she was arrested: “I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day. " ("I don't like Mondays. This enlivens the day.")
Bob Geldof wrote the song after watching the news of the killing spree come out of the radio studio's telex during a radio interview . In his autobiography So war’s (original title: Is That It? ) From 1987, Geldof wrote:
“But while the broadcaster was playing the record, the telex began to click next to me. I jumped over to catch the message it spat out. While I sat there, a young girl named Brenda Spencer was leaning out of her bedroom window with a gun and shooting people at her school across the street. What happened next struck me as uniquely American. A journalist called her. She picked up the phone, in and of itself a bizarre interruption when you are about to kill total strangers. He asked her why she was doing this. She thought for a moment and then said: 'Nothing going on. I don't like Mondays. '"
Each of the three stanzas of the song ends with a variation of the lines
|
And he can see no reasons |
And he can't see any reasons |
| This is followed by the refrain in which the singer answers the choir's repeated question: | |
|
Tell me why? |
Tell me why? |
Cover versions
In 2001 a version of Bon Jovi appeared on their live album One Wild Night . It was sung with Bob Geldof and recorded in 1995. In 1998 a version by the American punk band Groovie Ghoulies was released. In 2001 a version of Tori Amos appeared on her album Strange Little Girls . There are other versions by the Canadian songwriter Ron Sexsmith (2003) and the German DJ Mark 'Oh (2008). A version of the German punk band Walter Elf can be found on the album Die Angst des Tormanns bei Elfmeter.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bob Geldof: That's it. Childhood and Adolescence in Dublin. The Boomtown Rats. Band Aid and Live Aid. Translated by Clara Drechsler, Harald Hellmann. Bastei Lübbe, 1987. ISBN 3-404-61151-9 , p. 195.
Web links
- Pop songs and their backgrounds, by Jochen Scheytt ( Memento from May 3, 2015 in the Internet Archive )