The Boomtown Rats, I Don’t Like Mondays | 1 Hit WONDERful 👏👏👏

Reading Time: 3 min read

In the 5^th edition of 1 Hit WONDERful , we highlight “I Don’t Like Mondays ” performed by The Boomtown Rats.

It only takes ONE hit to solidify a musical legacy ! On 1 Hit WONDERful , we highlight songs that were the SOLE hit by a given musician. To be fair, it is possible that the artists appearing on this list earned a minor hit or two, BUT for the most part, it’s that ONE hit that earned them recognition. So, in the 5^th edition of 1 Hit WONDERful , we dive into “I Don’t Like Mondays ”, the one hit wonder by The Boomtown Rats.

“Tell me why / I don’t like Mondays / I wanna shoot the whole day down.” Mondays tend to be an unpopular day, but in the case of “I Don’t Like Mondays”, the hatred is far more pronounced. Irish rock band The Boomtown Rats wrote and recorded a song that references the Grover Cleveland Elementary School shooting. Infamously, 16-year old Brenda Spencer, who truly didn’t like Mondays, killed two adults and injured eight children with a .22 caliber semiautomatic rifle at the elementary across from her house . A worldwide hit from their 1979 album, The Fine Art of Surfacing, the song marks the only charting single by The Boomtown Rats on the Billboard Hot 100. Notably, “I Don’t Like Mondays” was a top five hit in many countries, including hitting no. 1 in Ireland, Australia, and the UK. In the United States, it settled for no. 73. Again, this was the collective’s sole charting hit, hence, one hit wonder status.

“The silicon chip inside her head / Gets switched to overload / And nobody’s gonna go to school today / She’s gonna make them stay at home.” Those lyrics, from the first verse of “I Don’t Like Mondays”, capture an unhinged person, in this case, a delusional mass murderer. In the first verse, Bob Geldof captures the shock of Brenda’s father, asserting, “And daddy doesn’t understand it / He always said she was good as gold.” This sometimes occurs in cases from mass murderers and serial killers where the parents didn’t see any signs, hence why “And mother feels so shocked, father’s world is rocked” (verse two). The third verse is incredibly disturbing:

“And all the playing’s stopped in the playground now

She wants to play with the toys a while

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

And the lesson is how to die.”

boxing Morbid, morbid, morbid. Beyond the songwriting, “I Don’t Like Mondays” is incredibly ear catching, thanks to its art pop/New Wave sound. The piano and keyboard work is brilliant by Johnny Fingers. Furthermore, the backing vocals only accentuate Geldof’s fabulous lead. Also, shout out the marvelous strings/string arrangement. Fun fact: Tori Amos covered “I Don’t Like Mondays” on her 2001 album, Strange Little Girls. The one is 1 Hit WONDERful , indeed!