According to Geldof, he wrote the song after reading a telex report at Georgia State University's campus radio station, WRAS, on the shooting spree of 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer, who fired at children in a school playground at Grover Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego, California, on 29 January 1979, killing two adults and injuring eight children and one police officer. Spencer showed no remorse for her crime; her explanation for her actions was "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day". Geldof had been contacted by Steve Jobs to play a gig for Apple, inspiring the opening line about a "silicon chip". The song was first performed less than a month later. Geldof explained how he wrote the song:
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. Not liking Mondays as a reason for doing somebody in is a bit strange. 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. And the journalists interviewing her said, 'Tell me why?' 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.
Geldof had originally intended the song as a B-side, but changed his mind after the song was successful with audiences on the Rats' US tour. Spencer's family tried to prevent the single from being released in the United States. In later years, Geldof admitted that he regretted writing the song because he "made Brenda Spencer famous". In 2019 Bob Geldof and Johnnie Fingers reached an agreement in their dispute over who wrote the song, up until then credited solely to Geldof. Fingers received a financial settlement and co-credit.
Chart performance
Despite reaching number-one in the United Kingdom, it only reached number 73 on the US Billboard Hot 100. The song was played regularly by album-oriented rock format radio stations in the United States throughout the 1980s, although radio stations in San Diego refrained from playing the track for some years to respect local sensitivities about the shooting. In the UK the song won the Best Pop Song and Outstanding British Lyric categories at the Ivor Novello Awards.
Weekly charts
Chart
Peak position
Year-end charts
Chart
Position
Australia
6
Canada
117
New Zealand
25
South Africa
11
UK
4
Chart
Position
Canada
55
Live performances
On 9 September 1981, Geldof was joined on stage by fellow Boomtown Rat Johnnie Fingers to perform the song for The Secret Policeman's Ball sponsored by Amnesty International. A recording of that performance appears on the 1982 album The Secret Policeman's Other Ball. The Boomtown Rats performed the song for Live Aid at Wembley Stadium in 1985. This was the band's final major appearance. On singing the line, "And the lesson today is how to die", Geldof paused for 20 seconds while the crowd applauded the significance to those starving in Africa that Live Aid was intended to help. At a concert in London in 1995, almost ten years later to the day, Bon Jovi covered the song after being joined on stage by Geldof at Wembley Stadium. This recorded performance features on Bon Jovi's live album One Wild Night Live 1985–2001, as well as on the bonus 2-CD edition of These Days. Bon Jovi was again joined by Geldof for a performance of the song at The O2 Arena on 23 June 2010, the 10th night of their 12-night residency. Geldof himself performed a version of the song while hosting the Live 8 concert in London, on 2 July 2005. "I Don't Like Mondays" was subsequently covered by Tori Amos on her 2001 album Strange Little Girls and later by G4 on their 2006 album Act Three.
