"Ripped from the headlines..."
283. Boomtown Rats "I Don't Like Mondays"
To be a kid in post-Vietnam America was to be bombarded by the media with the unthinkable on an almost daily basis. The first news stories I remember clearly were Jonestown and Patty Hearst. Over the years, it kept coming: the Iranian Hostages, John Hinckley, Waco, Oklahoma City, Columbine, 9/11, Abu Gahraib, serial killers, terrorists.. an endless stream of catacylsmic insanity and the usual 'what does it all mean' pseudo-investigation and 'pornography of grief' talk show attempts at elucidation. It was somewhat difficult not to come to the conclusion that world actually had gone mad. It wasn't that stuff like this didn't happen in earlier eras, but there wasn't the relentless and pervasive media to bring it all home to you in living color. This drove some people into Reagan/Falwell style conservatism, others into desperate save-the-world activism, and many more into what could be mistaken for apathy, but could be more accurately described an numbness.
No other rock song addresses this as well as today's, in my opinion. It was inspired by a 1979 incident in which a teenage girl named Brenda Spencer killed two people and wounded nine. When asked why, she said "I don't like mondays." Over elegant piano and swelling strings Bob Geldof delivers a ravaged vocal that articulates all of it, the shock, the pornography of grief ('Daddy dosen't understand it..') and most of all drives a dark truth home: 'You can see no reasons/cause there are no reasons..".
At first glance such despairing sentiments might seem strange coming from a man who later organized one of the biggest charity events in music history, but on second glance maybe not. Maybe the collective statement of Geldof's work is don't waste your time looking for sense where there isn't any, just concentrate on the positive changes you can make in this world. Can't really argue with that.
To be a kid in post-Vietnam America was to be bombarded by the media with the unthinkable on an almost daily basis. The first news stories I remember clearly were Jonestown and Patty Hearst. Over the years, it kept coming: the Iranian Hostages, John Hinckley, Waco, Oklahoma City, Columbine, 9/11, Abu Gahraib, serial killers, terrorists.. an endless stream of catacylsmic insanity and the usual 'what does it all mean' pseudo-investigation and 'pornography of grief' talk show attempts at elucidation. It was somewhat difficult not to come to the conclusion that world actually had gone mad. It wasn't that stuff like this didn't happen in earlier eras, but there wasn't the relentless and pervasive media to bring it all home to you in living color. This drove some people into Reagan/Falwell style conservatism, others into desperate save-the-world activism, and many more into what could be mistaken for apathy, but could be more accurately described an numbness.
No other rock song addresses this as well as today's, in my opinion. It was inspired by a 1979 incident in which a teenage girl named Brenda Spencer killed two people and wounded nine. When asked why, she said "I don't like mondays." Over elegant piano and swelling strings Bob Geldof delivers a ravaged vocal that articulates all of it, the shock, the pornography of grief ('Daddy dosen't understand it..') and most of all drives a dark truth home: 'You can see no reasons/cause there are no reasons..".
At first glance such despairing sentiments might seem strange coming from a man who later organized one of the biggest charity events in music history, but on second glance maybe not. Maybe the collective statement of Geldof's work is don't waste your time looking for sense where there isn't any, just concentrate on the positive changes you can make in this world. Can't really argue with that.
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