“I Don’t Like Mondays” by Irish rock band the Boomtown Rats is inspired by a real-life school shooting in San Diego, CA. On Monday, January 29, 1979, 17-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer opened fire on a school playground. She killed principal Burton Wragg and custodian Mike Suchar of Cleveland Elementary School, located across from Spencer’s house. During the six-hour shooting spree, she injured eight schoolchildren playing in the school playground and one police officer. When the sixteen-year-old was asked why she had committed the crime, she shrugged and replied, “I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.” She also said: “I had no reason for it, and it was just a lot of fun,” “It was just like shooting ducks in a pond,” and “(The children) looked like a herd of cows standing around, it was really easy pickings.” Spencer used a rifle she had received as a Christmas gift from her father. She pleaded guilty to murder and assault with a deadly weapon, and was sentenced to 25-to-life at the California Institution for Women in Corona.

The Boomtown Rats were at a US radio station for an interview when news of Spencer’s crime broke. The band’s leader Bob Geldof was inspired to write “I Don’t Like Mondays” by Spencer’s quote. The song was performed for the first time a month later at the Fox Theatre in San Diego. The song was included on the Boomtown Rats’ album The Fine Art of Surfacing. During the 1980’s, “I Don’t Like Mondays” was often played to begin the week on album-oriented rock radio stations. The complex and dramatic piano introduction to the song has become one of the most recognizable instrumental pieces in rock and roll. “I Don’t Like Mondays” has been covered by Tori Amos on her 2001 Strange Little Girls album and by G4 on their 2006 album Act Three.

I Don’t Like Mondays

The silicon chip inside her head

Gets switched to overload.

And nobody's gonna go to school today,

She's going to make them stay at home.

And daddy doesn't understand it,

He always said she was as good as gold.

And he can see no reason

'Cause there are no reasons

What reason do you need to be shown?

Tell me why?

I don't like Mondays.

Tell me why?

I don't like Mondays.

Tell me why?

I don't like Mondays.

I want to shoot

The whole day down.

The telex machine is kept so clean

As it types to a waiting world.

And mother feels so shocked,

Father's world is rocked,

And their thoughts turn to

Their own little girl.

Sweet 16 ain't so peachy keen,

No, it ain't so neat to admit defeat.

They can see no reasons

'Cause there are no reasons

What reason do you need to be shown?

Tell me why?

I don't like Mondays.

Tell me why?

I don't like Mondays.

Tell me why?

I don't like Mondays.

I want to shoot

The whole day down.

All the playing's stopped in the playground now

She wants to play with her toys a while.

And school's out early and soon we'll be learning

And the lesson today is how to die.

And then the bullhorn crackles,

And the captain crackles,

With the problems and the how's and why's.

And he can see no reasons

'Cause there are no reasons

What reason do you need to die?

Tell me why?

I don't like Mondays.

Tell me why?

I don't like Mondays.

Tell me why?

I don't like Mondays.

I want to shoot

The whole day down.