The Real Remorseless Crime at the Center of The Boomtown Rats’ “I Don’t Like Mondays”

In 1979, Irish new wave group The Boomtown Rats earned their second No. 1 U.K. hit when “I Don’t Like Mondays” was released. Written by Bob Geldof and Johnnie Fingers, the song gained increased attention because of its subject matter. Its focus was on a school shooting in San Diego that January.

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Geldof once explained the tragic inspiration for the song. Apparently, he read a report while at Georgia State University’s campus radio station about the incident. 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer had opened fire on an elementary school playground from her bedroom window. She killed two adults and injured eight children, along with one police officer.

The Boomtown Rats’ single took inspiration from Spencer’s response to her actions. She expressed no remorse for the attack. Instead, she said, “I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.”

While the incident and Spencer’s reaction to her crime inspired and interesting hit for The Boomtown Rats, Geldof later expressed regret at writing the song. According to Geldof, he regretted the song because it “made Brenda Spencer famous.”

Bob Geldof Explains How The Boomtown Rats’ Big Single “I Don’t Like Mondays” Came To Be

Speaking in October 1979 to the magazine Smash Hits, Geldof described how he learned about the crime in San Diego, which led to one of The Boomtown Rats’ biggest hits.

“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,” he said at the time. “Not liking Mondays as a reason for doing somebody in is a bit strange.”

He continued, “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.”

Looking for meaning behind Spencer’s actions and subsequent response seemed to inspire Geldof in a strange way. “And the journalists interviewing her said, ‘Tell me why?’” he said. “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.”

Photo by Fin Costello/Redferns